Thread: Purgatory: Whats wrong with porn? Board: Limbo / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 
if anything. And to clarify a few points first, this excludes child porn or any other illegal material, becasue that is a different issue. I also don't deny that for some people porn is a problem, an addiction, but then so is alcohol, and we drink that in churches.

[ 06. April 2006, 09:12: Message edited by: Duo Seraphim ]
 
Posted by Joyfulsoul (# 4652) on :
 
Objectification.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
My problem with photographic or videographic pornography is simply that someone has had to pose for those pictures. I feel that it is a dmaging process for them, and that many of them will have got into the industry as a result of having being damaged in various ways. (Lola Ferrari is an extreme example of the process.)

I also agree that objectification is a problem - and the attitudes that can be inculcated by exposure to some material. However, if people want to read erotica I don't really have a problem with that.
 
Posted by wanderingstar (# 10444) on :
 
It still depends on your choice of porn.

You may feel that it's a valid career choice for a liberated noughties woman (or man).

You may feel it's economic and/or moral exploitation of Eastern European (or equivalent) folks. For everyone who "makes it" there will be many left feeling/being used, broken, less than whole.

Thirdly, hard-ons make tbj weep buckets.

Now, how about what's right with porn?
 
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 
If I thought all the people in porno movies were really making a free choice and weren't being exploited, I'd have absolutely no problem with it. Everything I've read, plus conversations with the one person I've ever met who posed for porno mags, tells me that the vast majority of women who get into porn, like the vast majority of women who get into prostitution, do it because they don't feel like they have other good economic options. They may put a bright smile on and say it's all okay, but the real story is usually rather ugly. (Why men get into porn I don't know -- never run across anything on the subject, but have wondered for a long time if the movie "Boogie Nights" is at all exemplary.)

If you go to Asia Carrera's website, you'll find a lot of fun, happy stuff, and the biography available from the main page puts her career in a very positive light, but if you look hard enough, you can find a second biography (this page has no pictures so is safe -- rummage around the rest of the site at your own risk). The woman I know who did porno was, like Asia Carrera, a runaway, and she did porn starting when she was 16 because it was a step up from selling herself on the street.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Clarification:

1) By read, I mean by written material rather photos.

2) Problem with photo pornography is that you have know way of knowing if the person photographed is one of the notional happy sex-workers rather than one of the exploited ones.

3) What's right with porn? In theory, it's just another sex toy and can be value neutral - but of course nothing involving people
is value neutral.

[Eta: crosspost]

[ 18. February 2006, 21:35: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
 
Posted by ananke (# 10059) on :
 
I personally have issues with pornography as, like all media, changes the way we think. Given the highly effective 'reward' systems in pornography (do nothing = sexual release) it is even more insidious than most media.

It makes sex a thing to be observed rather than engaged in. I once had a 'relationship' with a porn addict. Every act was straight out of porn, not as in acting the stuff out but the way it is engaged in. Positions used for maximum visual effect rather than actual pleasure. The same thing happens with literary porn - it just happens more in one's head.

I think there is a line between erotica and porn - erotica recreates the feeling and the emotion of the act where porn describes it. Engaging in either creates a void where sexual expression becomes an object rather than internally motivated.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Once you're talking about written erotica vs written pornography it becomes very difficult to draw that distinction. I feel that written material has the benefit of at least not exploiting anyone else.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
It's too danged expensive.
 
Posted by Fr Alex (# 10304) on :
 
Erotica (words,) rather than porn pics, is very subjective. I remember at college a very evo student wanting me to sign a petition banning all porn, so I read to him (slightly suggestively) parts of the Songs of Song, which he found pornographic. One mans porn, is another mans scripture?
Fr Alex
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
In so far as the use of erotica is an extension of sexual fantasy I don't think it is a moral problem per se. The Song of Solomon is a good example of that.
 
Posted by Emma. (# 3571) on :
 
Its a huge overgeneralisation I know - but wheras (a lot of?) men are stimulated mainly visually - ie can get a hard on over some porn and reach that blissful moment - a lot of women (myself included) are more likely to have "lust-issues" or whatever, when caught up in an erotic piece of literature... The ideas the imagination etc. So much (for me at least... ) is to do with imagining the emotion, the feelings, teh touch, sensations, and hardly anything to do with the image of the person..

This can lead to a distinction of "womans porn" being ok, and "mans porn" not being. I think it boils down to... is the problem with porn mags the "exploitatoin of women" in which case written porn is fine, or is there something deeper about encouraging lust and desires/ encouraging objectification in real life relationships/ increasing sexual desire in anhealthy way?

Im not sure I know the answer. If I was an incredibly stunning woman though, and was offereed a small fortune to have my picture taken, Id like to think id say no (and why do i even say that? why do we assume its "right" to say no?!?!?) yet on the other hand - hardly any effort and a large income...?!
 
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on :
 
From the perspective of advancing age, it all seems comically mechanical. Somewhat analogous to observing one of those battery-operated clear plastic models of a gasoline engine with moving parts. See the oil pump circulate fluids to the cam shaft while the push rods actuate valve lifters. The pistons rise, compressing explosive gases to be fired electrically with a properly timed ignition system. [Snore]

Interesting, but no longer stimulating.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
I guess part of the worry, is adolescents growing up thinkging that sexual relationships should look like what they see in porn mags, and so should their and their partner's bodies.

One assumes older audiences maybe wiser - or past saving.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
Why men get into porn I don't know -- never run across anything on the subject

Well, I can't speak for anyone else, and not for people who get paid for it, but it might be an exhibitionistic streak, or finding it rather nice to have people find one attractive, or for that matter finding it a nice way to meet other like-minded guys with the same interests. It's really rather cool to meet someone who turns out to recognize me, and the other guys I have met in the same sort of context have generally been quite nice, with mundane jobs that pay their bills, who are into it because it's fun. The site I have been featured on is a pay site, but gives free memberships to the guys whose photos are used (i.e., if they use your pictures, then you get to see all the other photos; no idea what they pay for videos), so it's more of a collaboration among equals who are all into the same sort of thing than guys feeling forced or pressured into anything.

I am told that the Bel Ami studios in Europe (who have guys on the other end of the spectrum than my "type," and basically make movies for money) have none of the abuse-related issues, but are run by a former theater and film director and approach things in a very above-board way -- none of the actors are allowed to be on drugs and so on. When they "retire" from on-camera roles, some of the guys go on to other jobs for the company, but others go on to things like architecture school, so apart from any moral issues about sex per se, the concerns about people being pressured, trapped and such (which are indeed very real dangers) don't seem to be the case for at least some of the erotic film folks out there.

I obviously can't post appropriate links here to any sites connected to this here, nor to the site for the lesbian erotica publishers of On Our Backs, but the magazine was created by lesbians for lesbians, "as a response (in part) to the anti-pornography platform of most lesbian and feminist organizations and media at the time," and is still committed "to lesbian sexual diversity and empowerment."

David
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Well that kind of undermines a lot of my argument - but I still say that most consumers are not going to be in a position to judge the amount of exploitation / or lack of involved.
 
Posted by Janine (# 3337) on :
 
I have to say, I haven't seen much porn -- "real" porn, I mean, porn meant to be porn.

(Lots of ads and movie scenes over the years have crossed a line in my mind and are pornographic as far as I'm concerned --)

But, re: porn made and meant to be porn, what little I've seen has been bad. Stupid in the extreme. Tacky (and when I, the Queen of Tackiness, call something "tacky", child, it is tacky).

And the little bit of written porn I've read has been about 50/50 bad.

I'm not counting stuff that was written especially for me -- heh -- I mean supposedly professional stuff.

So it's real easy for me to stop short of digging into the spiritual/Christian/Scriptural reasons that matter to me, and make do with the critical reasons. It's easy for me to just toss out an across-the-board condemnation. "It's trash. Waste of film. Burn it."

Somewhere out there may be high-quality well-choreographed well-written porn, created only by totally willing people who have never been taken advantage of in the process. I just ain't seen it yet.
 
Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 
First, I was refcently in Germany and was surprise at how an open minded society looks and acts. Advertisements for porn movies were on the front of the Blockbuster equivelant, and it had a HUGE porn section. Not a problem. The most conservative of Christians would blow up condoms for their kids to play with (think baloons) and when asked why, they said they would rather have their kids talk about sex with them than with someone else. It all looked and seemed REAL healthy. When sex (and porn) is not relegated to "Dirty" it won't be.

If I am not mistaken they do not have the same serious "Sex crime" issues America does, but I am willing to be corrected on that with data.

Second, porn (and prostitution) can be very helpful for those that are not sexually desirable to most others for various reasons (handicapped, weight, socially undesirable, whatever). It might also be an outlet for people that are trying to stay in a sexually bad relationship. It may be the only outlet they have. To make that "Bad" strikes me as mean.

Third, even if many porn stars are exploited, to remove that economic option from them would simply move it underground. To say, criminilize sex is only slightly dumber than criminilizing drugs. Which is to say really stupid. It won't stop the problem and it will cause innocent people to be thrown in jail.
 
Posted by Campbellite (# 1202) on :
 
Am I the only one who mis-read the thread title as "What's wrong with pr0n?"

I thought not.
 
Posted by samara (# 9932) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
If you go to Asia Carrera's website, you'll find a lot of fun, happy stuff, and the biography available from the main page puts her career in a very positive light, but if you look hard enough, you can find a second biography (this page has no pictures so is safe -- rummage around the rest of the site at your own risk). The woman I know who did porno was, like Asia Carrera, a runaway, and she did porn starting when she was 16 because it was a step up from selling herself on the street.

Could you expand on this? I didn't think the second bio exactly put the industry in a negative light. Her life, yes, and how she got into it. That stripping was hard to do, and that screwing people for money was negative. But it wasn't clear, really, whether the porn industry was negative for her.

A step up from selling herself on the street - well, it was a step up, right? I guess the question is how far a step up she thought it was, or how far a step up it really is.
 
Posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom (# 3434) on :
 
I'm with Gort on this one. I have a peculiar job that means I see filmed porn every single day, most of it designed for the straight male. It is probably the single most boring "art" form in existence these days. It is impoverished, mechanistic - stick pole A into slot B, make a few noises then, wizzbang money shot. If you're talking about more than one man with one woman (which you usually are in about 80% of porn scenes) then it starts looking like some sort of Heath Robinson machine.

It isn't educational, it isn't pretty and it has some really nasty attitudes to women. After a few tapes, you learn all the dialogue, all the moves and all the combinations. I hate to think that people have such a limited view of what is, after all, supposed to be a great pleasure.

Chast, you're talking about gay porn, whole different story. We don't mind gay porn at work because it has energy, and quite often, humour.
 
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 
Thank you for all of your responses. There are a number of issues that prompted this, not least that my employer has done the web site for gay porn videos, which intrigues me, morally.

<devils advocate>
Objectification - yes I understand that. However is there not an argument that if the more lustful thoughts and ideas can be relieved with images/writing/videos then there is more chance of dealing with ones partner as a person, and not wanting to simply live out ones fantasies with them?
</devils advocate>

Addiction is bad. Expecting others to live up to your addictions is very bad. Rather like expecting others to be able to consume the same amount of alcohol as you. Sad, dangerous, wrong but an indication of an addiction problem, not necessarily with the object of the addiction.

Tackiness - yes no doubt ( not actually speaking from experience, you realise ). Porn as art would be a very short discussion.

I am interested in the distinctions being made by some between porn and erotica - would anyone like to expand on this. Maybe that is where the distinction shoudl lie - that erotica is acceptable, but porn is not for all of the reasons above.
 
Posted by Emma. (# 3571) on :
 
erotica = the bits we want to look at, and so classify as "not porn".
porn = those bits that dont work for us so we can look down on those that do like it...

A bit like the distinction(?) between porn mags and art??
 
Posted by Emma. (# 3571) on :
 
erotica = the bits we want to look at, and so classify as "not porn".
porn = those bits that dont work for us so we can look down on those that do like it...

A bit like the distinction(?) between porn mags and art??
 
Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :
 
Just a thought: we should not judge something by its usefulness, but by its compatibility with the commandments of Christ.
 
Posted by Emma. (# 3571) on :
 
andreas - you need to expand a bit further there, Christ didnt leave us with a textbook on relationships, or sex or global warming or the environment.... or all sorts of things. We need to come to a conclusion ourselves - hence the debate. I think perhaps as a christian and as an ethicist Id be wondering whether porn *does* conflict with "the commands of christ". Which ones were you thinking off?

For me personally - instinctively I react I dont like it (.,..and there fore must be wrong... [Roll Eyes] ), yet the odd erotic posed phot i see now and then i think - hey thats art...
 
Posted by Newman's Own (# 420) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
If I thought all the people in porno movies were really making a free choice and weren't being exploited, I'd have absolutely no problem with it. Everything I've read, plus conversations with the one person I've ever met who posed for porno mags, tells me that the vast majority of women who get into porn, like the vast majority of women who get into prostitution, do it because they don't feel like they have other good economic options.

I agree with Ruth on this point.

Though there are vast ranges in what might be considered pornography (I daresay there are those on this earth who would consider the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to be immodest), I believe that sexually explicit material is morally neutral. The OP made a good point about how addiction and 'use' can be quite different. Individually, whether one uses sexually explicit material could have moral implications - for example, if it led to cutting oneself off from relationships, or to viewing others as objects existing only as virtual sex toys, inciting violence, whatever. There could be no one standard.

I'm sure I am not alone, among celibates, in that I need to be discriminating about reading sexually explicit material (by which I mean that which has much detail about sexual acts, not that which merely contains references to sexual relationships - the latter are not a problem at all.) My reason is simple - I do not think it is charitable to oneself to start what one cannot finish. Some people can become aroused very easily, and would need to accept this and judge one's use of such material accordingly. As I have grown older, much of my sex drive has declined, and it well could be that I would not need to avoid what could cause all sorts of discomfort for one half my age. Perhaps, were I married, I would find such material helpful to get me halfway there before beginning.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
And then there are those who are single who do not not necessarily wish to be abstinent.
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
I think it gradually desensitises us in ways we don't perceive.

A friend of mine did one year of his PhD research in India and said he felt overwhelmed and horny all the time on his return to the UK, even by 'soft' images used in advertising.

It also, possibly, makes 'normal' people feel inferior if they have not got big breasts, penis etc. Hence the huge rise in plastic surgery, 'boob jobs' etc.

[ 19. February 2006, 13:47: Message edited by: leo ]
 
Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Emma.:
andreas - you need to expand a bit further there

Now, Emma, when I expand my thoughts further I get called to Hell [Biased] Seriously now, I might get misunderstood if I say something, because people here think in different terms than I do; for example they might think "Andreas is saying that porn is sinful".

I was replying to those that said that porn can be useful in a practical way. I said that this should have nothing to do with Christian thinking.

Since you ask for guidelines, I will remind you that the crux of the gospel is expressed clearly by Christ. He said: "if anyone want to become my disciple, let them deny themselves, and take up their cross and follow me".

The question is who wants to deny himself / herself and follow Christ.
 
Posted by The Lady of the Lake (# 4347) on :
 
Re: distinction between (visual) pornography and erotic art, I think it was Roger Scruton who said that the latter tends to draw the viewer's eye to the face of the subject rather than the genitals(though I think here he's concentrating on more classical/pre-modern nudes in art, not the 20th century grotesque/weird stuff that surfaces as 'modern art'). As a working definition, I like it because it helps distinguish between a mind/soul-and-body approach, and a reduction of the person to body parts, or an obsessive focus on body parts (which okay sometimes also functions symbolically, as in some of Rodin and Courbet's visual art).

Having said that, it is noticeable that art shops seem to increasingly stock images that are generally considered as pornograhpic as 'art', e.g. it's impossible to miss the 50th anniversary album of Playboy next to the Michaelangelos, etc. The 'problem' as far as I can see is that it involves photographs, which deceive the viewer more convincingly than drawings, paintings or sculptures regarding what 'perfect bodies' are like. I also failed to notice any use of e.g. philosophical or mythological symbolism in those photos that might render them 'artistic' in the way that a lot of historic art work involving nudes seems to do.
 
Posted by Caz... (# 3026) on :
 
Andreas, I agree with you that just because something could be described as useful doesn't make it an appropriate option for Christians always.

But are you going to give your opinion on the subject actually being discussed? Otherwise reading your comment feels a little "hit and run", if you understand me.

I don't know what I think about this. I know all sorts of situations where I would say porn was bad. Those would include where people had been focred into it, whatever that means, where people were using it to feed an obsession or addiction or using it as an excuse to objectify or treat their sexual partners badly in some other way.

I also find written erotica a "better" solution because it's fiction with no real people involved I guess - and partly because as Emma says, women often find written things more stimulating than men in that regard. Perhaps that's just because it would be my preference.

But for example, if I were in a committed relationship, marriage say, with a man who naturally had a much higher sex drive than me. Say that he felt bad for always being in the mood when I wasn't, and I felt bad for not ever initiating things. If I were to read some erotica while he was on his way home, got myself in the mood and thereby led to me initiating sex for once... I don't think that would be a bad thing. I think it would probably be a good thing for my hypothetical marriage.

But this isn't me, you understand. No siree. I'm at it like a rabbit. 4 times a day, us. Minimum. [Biased]
 
Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :
 
Caz..., I think that being a Christian does not have to do with doing the right thing, or not sinning.

I think that being a Christian has to do with learning how to die, how to die to oneself in order to live in Christ. I don't think that many people want to die...

You spoke of porn being "bad", or about "committed relationships", or "a bad thing" etc. I would not use such an approach to talk about the gospel of Christ.
 
Posted by Caz... (# 3026) on :
 
But this thread is about what you think of porn!
 
Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :
 
Yes, and what I said was "look dude, I cannot judge what other people do, but for one who wants to deny oneself, porn is not helping him do this; in fact, porn helps one live, not die to oneself".
 
Posted by Caz... (# 3026) on :
 
OK, thanks - that's clearer. [Smile]

Wouldn't that make all (pleasurable) sexual activity unhelpful though?
 
Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :
 
No wonder ancient Christians esteemed virginity so much. It was unthinkable in their times what many of them did; that's why they were mocked by the non-Christians.

[ETA] It's not only virginity; it's about not having sex before marriage, abstinence from sex in marriage for periods of time, etc.

[ 19. February 2006, 16:19: Message edited by: andreas1984 ]
 
Posted by Caz... (# 3026) on :
 
I'm sorry Andreas, I don't follow (could be Sunday afternoon stupor)

So are you saying that all sexual activity outside of marriage including porn is etc is wrong for a Christian because it causes you to live rather than die to yourself, but within marriage it is sometimes okay, but that sometimes you should abstain for a while?

I'm just a bit confused on why it's okay to sometimes have pleasurable sex within marriage as surely you are still living and not dying to yourself at those times?

Or have I misunderstood you?
 
Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :
 
I'm not really an expert on sex, so I don't have a clue what I'm saying here.

I just pointed out the understanding the Church developed about sexuality, that sex has no place in a Christian's life before marriage, that married people are to fast abstaining from sex etc
 
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
The first time I became aware of porn was at primary school when a very sexually aware girl in my class started handing around photographs in the playground. It wasn't just the fact that it was naked bodies - I came from a family where my mother insisted on walking around naked to show it was nothing to be ashamed of (which actually embarrassed the heck out of me, but that's another story) so naked bodies were fairly natural. It was the fact that it was men and women and sticks together - at the age of 9 or 10 I couldn't quite understand what sticks had to do with it. Anyway, I remember at the time having a very strong, instinctive feeling that it was wrong - despite never having any teaching about such stuff (in those days it never occurred to teachers or parents to teach primary age children about such things). But I also knew instinctively that I should never tell my teacher about the photos.

Is it the images themselves, or the secrecy and furtiveness often surrounding them which is wrong? And if so, how is that changed in a society which is increasingly more upfront about their existence?
 
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on :
 
Pornography, much like any other method of stimulating the senses, is not a black and white issue. If a person finds that pornography inhibits their path (for whatever reason), then they should avoid it. I don't find it helpful applying other's interpretations of gospel to something so fundamentally personal as sexual stimulation. There are enough inhibitions surrounding the subject without adding religous fervor to the mix.

If someone wants to truly "deny themselves" for a spiritual goal then don't be half-hearted about it. Find a cave and become an ascetic.
 
Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :
 
Gort, you are suggesting that the gospel is different from what I'm saying. I think that you are saying this for many reasons. It would make Christianity harsher than one might want it to be, it would mean that many Christians are not Christ's desciples, it would mean that our society is essentially anti-Christian and so on. But you have to do more than simply dismiss what I said. You have to explain why my understanding does not represent what the actual gospel is like.

Don't forget that when a man asked Christ what to do in order to be perfect, Christ replied that in order to become perfect one "has to sell all his possessions and follow Him". You seem to be thinking that Christ was speaking hyperboles. However, I don't think so. Neither did the first Christians, nor people like St. Anthony, who became an monk the moment he heard the aforementioned passage.

I think that what you said shows clearly what I have been saying in JimmyT's thread. You spoke of "ascesis". I said that the orthodox way of being a Christian is through an ascetic approach to life. I also said that the West, due to the changes the new populations brought in the fifth century, no longer approaches life in an ascetic way.
 
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
[...] You have to explain why my understanding does not represent what the actual gospel is like...

No, I don't. The subject of this thread is not about debating your understanding of gospel.
 
Posted by RooK (# 1852) on :
 
If I were as objective as RuthW, I'd probably mirror her view exactly. However, I must confess that I'm a bit jaded about the whole idea of classifying pornography as being much different from anything else in human society.

To look at things from a perspective of exploitation, I'm not sure pornography really stands out. I mean, I took some dangerous, life-threatening jobs when I was desperate for money. And it's not like such combinations of dirty jobs with those desperate enough to do them is at all uncommon. Nor do I think it ever will be. I think about a career with one of the highest rates of drug abuse and required counselling - commercial fishing - and I feel numbed.

It seems to me that Mad Geo has hold of the issue in the most meaningful manner. You can point fickle fingers of circumstantial blame at the porn industry, but all that really separates it is that it's bluntly about sex. I suspect that the best way to minimize the harmful effects of the porn industry, because there will always be one, is to keep it under the protective wing of mainstream consciousness instead of shoving it into the dark corners of our denial.

To fully admit my bias, I've been known to use nude models for my drawings. As much as I hate and try to ignore the binary "pornography" response people have to some of my nudes, I really do find the naked human form beautiful - and an important facet of that is sexual. I feel strongly that, as long as nobody is treated in a criminal manner, people should be content to regulate their own participation in the material.
 
Posted by Emma. (# 3571) on :
 
andreas- it sounds like you are coming form a bit of a dualist (hmm is that the word i mean?) view where you see all bodily things as wrong, or at least denying them all as good.

Just following this though, does that mean that in your eyes the "ideal" or "aim" for A good christian would be to only ever eat bread and water, to never eat nice food, never buy nice clothes, live in a tent, never have sex....

I actually dont read the gospel that way. I do think at times yes "deny yourself" really does mean that, but i dont think it meant we should all be penniless/homeless etc.

Anyway - back to sex, why are you interpreting "deny yourself" in this area, maybe this wasnt an area to deny oneself - i for one hope that if I ever get married that my partner and I would both have a hugely exciting and fulfilled sex life. (in fact Paul tells couples to basically keep each other happy and *only* to stop from sex, *if* they really have to, in order to fast - hes not advocating it!!)

As for fear of a hell calling... do say what you think, but a simple guidline would be "i think the bible might be saying xyz" or "what about this bit here... does this mean" xyz"rather than andreas view of the gospel is The gospel and youll find entering into discussion a lot easier [Big Grin]

(im still curious btw as to your reasoning - dont not play because youre scared of a hell calling! Just play nicely [Smile] )
 
Posted by Emma. (# 3571) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:


... but all that really separates it is that it's bluntly about sex. I suspect that the best way to minimize the harmful effects of the porn industry, because there will always be one, is to keep it under the protective wing of mainstream consciousness instead of shoving it into the dark corners of our denial.

To fully admit my bias, I've been known to use nude models for my drawings. As much as I hate and try to ignore the binary "pornography" response people have to some of my nudes, I really do find the naked human form beautiful - and an important facet of that is sexual. I feel strongly that, as long as nobody is treated in a criminal manner, people should be content to regulate their own participation in the material.

Hey rook - great points!!

I too think that the naked human (particularly female ,even tho im mainly straight) body is beautiful. I think an imprtant part of our lives is our sexuality.

Sometimes it does feel like anything to do with sex has to be hushed up as if its easier to deny that part of ourselves.

Peter Varry (prolific ethics writer for students) has a book called "the question of sex" (i think) and I really do want to read that soon (after pay day amazon here i come!)
hmm school library perhaps...


About half way down this page are some quotes from his book and a "way forwards" if anyones interested.

peter vardy quotes

(there are a couple of thumnails of womens legs at the top amongst the philosophers but i think its works safe...!)

(on second thoughts, it has "Philosophy of love, sex, orgasm" in big letters you may not want on your screen in public!!)

 
Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :
 
I think that in Western culture orthodoxy comes accross as dualism, because the Western man has dropped the gospel many centuries ago. It's a bit ironic, when you think that orthodox people who did A LOT of ascesis were the ones that fought manichaistic opinions.

Dualism consisists in physical reality being bad, and spiritual reality being good. Orthodoxy (small o) consists in physical reality being united with spiritual reality and a fight inside the physical-spiritual man in order to become Spiritual (i.e. leb by the Holy Spirit instead of his own self).

So, I'm not being dialist because I see no fight between physical and spiritual things; I see a fight between the "old man" and the "new man".

You spoke about Paul. Paul is clear on sexuality; he prefers all people to be virgin. However, because of pastoral needs, he allows people to get married. That's a pretty different attitude from what we see today, don't you think?

Christ spoke of "death". He said that in order to live, one has to die first. This death, this beginning of a new life in the Holy Spirit, was practised by the ancient Christians. Nowdays it is almost entirely forgoten.

I think that the Church can accommodate for both, those that want to die and those that want to live. But I think that for the Church to be the Church of Christ, She needs not to mix the gospel with things that come from sources other than Christ; She has to be frank with Herself and others.

I also think that we should be frank with ourselves, understand that we are not "born again", and ask some serious questions about if we really want to let go of ourselves and follow Christ. It's not bad not to want to be Christ's disciple. Christ did not come to make all people Christians! But sincerity (that leads to humility) is important in my opinion.
 
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 
Rook - excellent post. I think the points at the end about your models may be the eroticism/pornography distinction - in that for you they have an eroticism, which is the sexual aspect of the appreciation, but which other see as pornography.

And the reality is that workers in a whole lot of industries are exploited and demeaned. It's just a whole lot more obvious in pornographic images than in the clothes you are wearing. But people have ( probably ) been abused along the way to making those, but do it because they have no other choice.

If you stop buying, you simply mean that they lose out on a means of survival. Hmmm.
 
Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on :
 
[QUOTE]Originally posted by andreas1984:
[QB] the Western man has dropped the gospel many centuries ago.

Hmm...rather a sweeping statement, ISTM. Proof positive, please?

Ian J.
 
Posted by BassoProfundo (# 11008) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:

I just pointed out the understanding the Church developed about sexuality, that sex has no place in a Christian's life before marriage....

You have to remember though, that Christ embraced Mary Magdelene.

[ 19. February 2006, 17:44: Message edited by: BassoProfundo ]
 
Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :
 
Um, Mary from Magdala, was a woman possessed by many demons whom Jesus delivered. What has she to do with sex?
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
Gort, you are suggesting that the gospel is different from what I'm saying. I think that you are saying this for many reasons.

Among them might even be that Gort's understanding of the gospel might be different from yours, without any kind of hidden motives! [Smile]

David
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
Re Mary Magdalene, some traditions hold that she was a penitent prostitute.
 
Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
Re Mary Magdalene, some traditions hold that she was a penitent prostitute.

Ah, but what do the Scriptures say? [Biased]
 
Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :
 
I wasn't talking about hidden motives! No, I think Gort is frank in what he is saying. I was only talking about the historical reasons that led to the formation of certain opinions.
 
Posted by mirrizin (# 11014) on :
 
Perhaps the Christian issue with pornography is that it is an empty self-indulgence. Allowing one pleasurable part of the body to come between one's self and the rest of one's existence?

Also, I know or have heard of churches that are of the opinion that sexual relations in general are an obstacle to God, going back to the dualistic point. Not that I think so, but it's a view that some seem to hold.

Or maybe it's just plain anti-social. Replacing normal relations between sexes with something that puts the one at the mercy/pleasure of the other?

Just some thoughts...

[edited to clarify, fix spelling, and avoid repetition]

[ 19. February 2006, 18:24: Message edited by: mirrizin ]
 
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mirrizin:
Also, I know or have heard of churches that are of the opinion that sexual relations in general are an obstacle to God, going back to the dualistic point. Not that I think so, but it's a view that some seem to hold.

There is, historically, a view that sex is bad in the church, which is less prevalent than it was. Although the roots of what I think Andreas is saying are from the same understandings. The more recent view that pleasure ( in general ) is not sinful seems more enlightened, but takes us back to the opening question - is THIS pleasure sinful or wrong, and why?

quote:
Originally posted by mirrizin:
Or maybe it's just plain anti-social. Replacing normal relations between sexes with something that puts the one at the mercy/pleasure of the other?

Which point well made, but that would also seem to rule out some consensual S/M practices.
 
Posted by Chapelhead (# 21) on :
 
This strikes me as a difficult topic, and one that tends to get mixed up with a great many others ideas, feelings and hang-ups.

The reason I’ve most often heard from religious circles for opposition to porn is one already given on this thread, that of “objectification”. But I’m not sure that this argument stands up. OK, porn involves one person relating to another person or persons in a manner that involves just one aspect of their being – the physical form. But if I buy and listen to a CD of a singer aren’t I then relating to them in just such an objective manner? I probably don’t care what that person is like in terms of character, I have no significant interest in their well-being, it’s likely that I’m not concerned whether they enjoyed carrying out the performance I am listening to. I am relating to them in an entirely objective manner, but nobody seems to be condemning this as immoral objectification.

Isn’t it the case that ever since the invention of mass-production in the form of the printing press many people have related objectively to many others? Prior to this point most people’s relationships with others would have been personal, as one person to another. Even the pictures that people might have seen would be likely to be of the dead (for whom a “personal” relationship does not apply in the same way) – with the possible exception of the monarch’s head on a coin. Now I can have an “objectified” relationship with the person who writes the newspaper, the television presenter, the artist’s model etc, and these don’t seem to cause controversy.

The difference with (photographic) porn, I think, is that somehow a photograph is regarded as much more “personal”, more about the “real person”. Shades here, I suspect, of the idea of photographs “stealing your soul”.

Or to put it another way, if I hire a photographic model for work in which the model will be clothed, how is that less “objectification” than if I hire a model for nude work? Of course, you may not regard the latter as “porn”, but I suspect that many people would regard any “nude” photography as porn.
 
Posted by mirrizin (# 11014) on :
 
quote:

Which point well made, but that would also seem to rule out some consensual S/M practices.

Fair. I didn't think of that angle. Still, even in consensual S&M, the masochist is regarded as a person, even a subject (at least from their view). Certainly (not speaking from experience [Two face] ) they get something out of the bargain. I think it would be far less interesting if the "M" side was literally a picture, an "object," which leads me to take this to the "porn as objectification" argument: it creates a mode of sexual interaction [Paranoid] in which the only object is the self. As it isolates the self from the rest of the community, world, whathaveyou, it is also antisocial behavior, which does not seem to be very christian.

Does that make sense?
 
Posted by Joyfulsoul (# 4652) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Chapelhead:
The reason I’ve most often heard from religious circles for opposition to porn is one already given on this thread, that of “objectification”. But I’m not sure that this argument stands up. OK, porn involves one person relating to another person or persons in a manner that involves just one aspect of their being – the physical form. But if I buy and listen to a CD of a singer aren’t I then relating to them in just such an objective manner? I probably don’t care what that person is like in terms of character, I have no significant interest in their well-being, it’s likely that I’m not concerned whether they enjoyed carrying out the performance I am listening to. I am relating to them in an entirely objective manner, but nobody seems to be condemning this as immoral objectification.

I think, perhaps, there is an fundamental different purpose in listening to music vs. porn. Not only that, but I think there's something about how porn can affect sexual relations and perspectives in a way that music doesn't. (no doubt there are some music that is purposed to be just plainly sexual but I think it would be a huge stretch to argue that all music is designed for sexual stimulation). I dunno, I just don't find those comparisons equivalent.
 
Posted by barrea (# 3211) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
if anything. And to clarify a few points first, this excludes child porn or any other illegal material, becasue that is a different issue. I also don't deny that for some people porn is a problem, an addiction, but then so is alcohol, and we drink that in churches.

Porn should have no place in the life of a Christian. God says Be ye holy for I am holy.
When we are born again the bible says that we are New Chreatures old things are passed away.
If we fill our minds with filth,that is what we will be thinking of instead of how we can please God.
We are made to ejoy sex but God requires us to wait until we are married. and sex otside of marriage is fornication according to the scriptures. Its not easy but it is possible with God's help.
How people pray and read God's word and if the mind is filled with pictures of people doing sinful acts.
I am talking about true Christians here. Unbelievers will do what they want to do anyway.
 
Posted by Joyfulsoul (# 4652) on :
 
Barrea, I appreciate your perspective but what I feel is important is to understand why something is holy and something else is unholy. I mean, the bible doesn't really talk about porn (as far as I can tell) but it does say to live holy lives.

So, one way of figuring this out is to look at what the essence of something is and the consequences of it - and I think that is what we are trying to do on this thread.

I think that no matter if you believe in God or not, I still think this discussion and investigation is helpful.
 
Posted by Sine Nomine (# 66) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I think it gradually desensitises us in ways we don't perceive.

I agree, although perhaps in a way leo didn't quite intend.

I notice that the OP doesn't specify "What's wrong with porn" in a specifically Christian context so I won't go there.

But I have found over time that if you give too many little pieces of yourself away ultimately there's not much left inside and you have reduced your capacity to relate and feel - even to love. This applies to both porn and sexual promiscuity, in my personal opinon and experience.

Naturally I certainly didn't feel this way at 25 but in retrospect I find those religious and societal restrictions had a wisdom behind them I didn't realize with comparatively little life experience.

[ 19. February 2006, 21:20: Message edited by: Sine Nomine ]
 
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by samara:
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
If you go to Asia Carrera's website, you'll find a lot of fun, happy stuff, and the biography available from the main page puts her career in a very positive light, but if you look hard enough, you can find a second biography (this page has no pictures so is safe -- rummage around the rest of the site at your own risk). The woman I know who did porno was, like Asia Carrera, a runaway, and she did porn starting when she was 16 because it was a step up from selling herself on the street.

Could you expand on this? I didn't think the second bio exactly put the industry in a negative light. Her life, yes, and how she got into it. That stripping was hard to do, and that screwing people for money was negative. But it wasn't clear, really, whether the porn industry was negative for her.
Screwing people for money is what the porn industry is all about for the people in front of the camera. It seems to me that she's hardly going to come out and say, "Yeah, the porn industry really sucks," when she's so identified with it. But I think that she finds the need to put this second bio on her site at all is rather revealing.

quote:
A step up from selling herself on the street - well, it was a step up, right? I guess the question is how far a step up she thought it was, or how far a step up it really is.
I think this goes with RooK's point, which is a very good one -- there are a lot of sucky jobs out there that people will do if someone will pay them enough. And I think he's right to say that the only thing different about the porn industry is that sex is involved; that we are as a culture weird about sex (and for Christians this goes double) is probably one of the main reasons we periodically get threads on the Ship about whether or not porn is okay and we don't get threads about whether it's okay to eat fish, which must be harvested by commercial fisherman at great personal risk.

I happen to think that porn should stay legal for the same reasons that I think prostitution and drug dealing should be legalized -- these things should all be out in the open so they can be more easily regulated and policed. But I also don't think we should kid ourselves that this will make everything okay. Workers in all sorts of less dangerous and less degrading occupations are exploited on a regular basis because some people are willing to exploit others and others are willing to be exploited or feel they have no better option.
 
Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by barrea:
Porn should have no place in the life of a Christian. God says Be ye holy for I am holy.
When we are born again the bible says that we are New Chreatures old things are passed away.
If we fill our minds with filth,that is what we will be thinking of instead of how we can please God.
We are made to ejoy sex but God requires us to wait until we are married. and sex otside of marriage is fornication according to the scriptures. Its not easy but it is possible with God's help.
How people pray and read God's word and if the mind is filled with pictures of people doing sinful acts.
I am talking about true Christians here. Unbelievers will do what they want to do anyway.

Have you read the Song of Songs lately? If the standard is "I know porn when I see it", well then that book is written porn, through and through. Many of your god's "favorites" were polygamists extraordinaire. Does that count as "married"?

As someone once said, if we all could see what was going on in our [Christian] neighbor's house, there would be none of this throwing around of words like "Filthy" and "Dirty" because the only reason those terms exist is that people do not know what you've tried in the privacy of your bedroom. I like to imagine people that cry "Sin!" over sex doing some trapeze flying, dildo waving, sex in every position but missionary, cock ring, Wild Thing™ sex acts to put them in their true Christian light.

I am very glad Rook brought up the issue of Sensual Art versus Porn. Some of the greatest sensual art has been paid for by Christian churches over the centuries. Sure they tack on a halo or two to tone it down, or named the statue "David" but folks make no mistake that could easily have been named "Studboy" and gone the other way.

If everyone in general (at least in America) and Christians in particular would get the stick out of their asses (or maybe put one in occasionally [Biased] ) I would bet $100 that we might have a lot less warmongering, a lot more joy, and a generally more "Christian" spirit of loving thy neighbor (perhaps literally). Not to mention probably less sex crimes, people that have no business being in jail, and so on.
 
Posted by barrea (# 3211) on :
 
Sorry mad George but i don't agree with you.

We have more immoral conduct than ever in the UK. More children having sex, more teenage pregnacies, more abortions, more people living together unmarried, more people watching porn ect I could go on:

But has it has it brought more joy, more peace,
less war, or all-round benifit. just ask yourself.

The truely joyfull people are the ones who know God's will and do it.
 
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by barrea:
We have more immoral conduct than ever in the UK. More children having sex, more teenage pregnacies, more abortions, more people living together unmarried, more people watching porn ect

But barrea, more 'immoral conduct' than when? I hear this view quite often, usually from particular sections of British society, but I can never figure it out. It's as if there was once a 'golden time' of purity, and now it's all gone to the dogs. I just don't buy it. Apart from anything else, how do you know who was doing what before stats were invented?
 
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
[...] The more recent view that pleasure ( in general ) is not sinful seems more enlightened, but takes us back to the opening question - is THIS pleasure sinful or wrong, and why?

Perhaps the admonition against "worshiping graven images" applies here? I've always felt there was more to that warning than golden calves. Focusing desire on any image that diverts attention from the Real Thing is bad, IMO. This could be said of everything from worshiping status symbols to cosmetic surgery. Not that I feel we're doomed to hell as a result, but that there is a fundamental short-circuiting of a creative process in the warning... sort of a "don't waste your energy shooting blanks" thing. (sorry for my illiterate analogies)

[ 19. February 2006, 23:28: Message edited by: Gort ]
 
Posted by Emma. (# 3571) on :
 
I agree its wrong to harp back to a "golden age" but teenage pregnancy is rising and rising - the uk being the worst in europe. STDs are also rising at an alarming rate, especially with some being unnoticeable with out a test and can lead to infertility etc.

I actually was quite shocked to realise how many students i teach (middle class "nice" girls grammar school) are sexuallyy active, and each year have a couple working in a strip club/ topless bar.

Ive done a series on sex and relationships with 14-16year olds, over half would "sleep with someone for a million dollars" (heck if i was single im not entirely sure Id say no anymore [Frown] ). fair enough etc, but I thought kids were supposed to be idealistic and initialy have dreams of purity etc (maybe it was just me!!!)
 
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Emma.:
Ive done a series on sex and relationships with 14-16year olds, over half would "sleep with someone for a million dollars" (heck if i was single im not entirely sure Id say no anymore [Frown] ). fair enough etc, but I thought kids were supposed to be idealistic and initialy have dreams of purity etc (maybe it was just me!!!)

[Big Grin]

I've had that 'million dollars' conversation myself - but it was with a guy who, no matter how often I said it, would not believe that under no circumstances would I ever sleep with anyone for any money at all. What a cynic!

I wouldn't begin to dispute the position as you describe it, Emma, coz they do seem to be the facts. What concerns me with statements such as the one barrea made (not picking on barrea in particular; as I say, I've heard it many times before) is that it reflects only a relatively short timespan. Did we know what people got up to 200 years ago? There might not have been porn around as we know it, and abortion may have been less common (because it was a lot more risky), but does that mean people weren't dying from syphillis on a fairly regular basis or that girls weren't getting pregnant at 13? I'm just not convinced things are worse (or better) now than at any other time in history. It seems to be that we just get to know about things now because we have the means of collecting and communicating the information. But perhaps this is a tangent.
 
Posted by RooK (# 1852) on :
 
Feeding the tangent.

Sorry, the fictional "moral golden age" that everybody remembers as coinciding with their youth - regardless of when that actually was - is one of my hobby horses.
 
Posted by Emma. (# 3571) on :
 
An interesting one though!!

I remember at some museum in texas (cant remember what it was) there were some ancient greek pots and things with v pornagrpahic images on them, so im guessint the porn aspect isnt new.

Actually, humans are sexually creatures - the discovery of sex isnt new!

As for abortions - didnt some ancient civilisations practice infanticide instead...

As for pregnancys etc, I think you could be right, I do wonder now adn tehn if pre the invention of teenager, when peeps went out to work 13+ etc, whetehr there was such a delay between the onset of puberyt and sexual activity.,.

hmm wheres ken when you need him - hes good with all this kind of stuff!
 
Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by barrea:
Sorry mad George but i don't agree with you.

We have more immoral conduct than ever in the UK. More children having sex, more teenage pregnacies, more abortions, more people living together unmarried, more people watching porn ect I could go on:

But has it has it brought more joy, more peace,
less war, or all-round benifit. just ask yourself.

The truely joyfull people are the ones who know God's will and do it.

Another myth. Some of the saddest people I know are also the most Christian. Christianity does not equal joy any more than anything else.

As other's have already said, this harkens back to a golden period that simply didn't exist. Did you know that marriage wasn't an official act (for anything less than the titled landowners) until around the Middle Ages? Living together was the rule until some priestly wanker in the Church decided he had to control sex in the unwashed masses. How noble and moral of him, and it was a him.

Did you know that having babies as a teenager was the norm until around the last couple of centuries? Since most people lived to around 35, teenage years were prime for popping out babies.

Every other religion, whether they were Jews, Wiccan, Hindu, Islam, whatever, held sex as sacred and not profane over history. It took Christianity to turn it into something dirty, and to be wholesale controlled in it's every twist. Thanks guys, and it was guys (RC Priests to be exact).

I wish Christians were forced to repeatedly read Song of Songs from cradle to grave. Better yet, perhaps they should take up polyamory or polygamy, because that's what their boys did in the Bible dontcha know.....and we definitely want to emulate them!
 
Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 
P.S. Mad George, while funny, is not correct. I'm a Mad Geologist. But do carry on.
 
Posted by Beautiful_Dreamer (# 10880) on :
 
my ex used porn and even though he said he didnt, I know he compared me to those women and got a really screwed up image of what a woman was supposed to look like or be. He had no respect for women and I think a good deal of that had to do with his porn addiction, even though he would swear he could stop whenever he wanted. He would make me feel like I was fat and ugly and a bitch because I wasnt easy and skinny like those porn girls. He used it even though he knew I hated it. So the problem with porn is objectification (not just of the porn people but of all women in general, it happens trust me)and the fact that it portrays a false image of people.
 
Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 
A. Porn causes evil mean bastard.

Or:

B. Evil mean bastard who also happens to look at porn.

I'm guessing B.
 
Posted by A.F. Steve (# 9057) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gort:
From the perspective of advancing age, it all seems comically mechanical. Somewhat analogous to observing one of those battery-operated clear plastic models of a gasoline engine with moving parts. See the oil pump circulate fluids to the cam shaft while the push rods actuate valve lifters. The pistons rise, compressing explosive gases to be fired electrically with a properly timed ignition system. [Snore]

Interesting, but no longer stimulating.

That may be the funniest description of porn I have ever read!

It reminds me of the description of hurricane reporting as porn:

A bunch of middle-aged men swaying rythmically while getting the blow of their lives.
 
Posted by Emma. (# 3571) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
Another myth. Some of the saddest people I know are also the most Christian. Christianity does not equal joy any more than anything else.

Sad but true [Frown] Also I know far too many christians not enjoying the so called weding gift" of exciting sex within marriage.

quote:


As other's have already said, this harkens back to a golden period that simply didn't exist. Did you know that marriage wasn't an official act (for anything less than the titled landowners) until around the Middle Ages? Living together was the rule until some priestly wanker in the Church decided he had to control sex in the unwashed masses. How noble and moral of him, and it was a him.

Did you know that having babies as a teenager was the norm until around the last couple of centuries? Since most people lived to around 35, teenage years were prime for popping out babies.

Wow. I think its the teenage thing being hte norma that i was thinking to be the case. so so so so so strange to imagine that being hte case now tho. Apparently marriages far more likely to last if you get married over 21.


AS for the sleeping togher pre legalisation of marriage... would that have meant that you didnt "date" but went straight into sex with someone you fancied? And did that sex equate more or less to marriage? Was there anything binding or could it have been a series of one night stands? would it have been frowned upon to stop seeing each other once you had (was it a case of marry/sleep with first boyfriend?) and
does that mean then that you basically chose someone you liked, slept wtih them and then made the decision to stay loyal?

(all interesting stuff)
 
Posted by RooK (# 1852) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Emma.:
and does that mean then that you basically chose someone you liked, slept wtih them and then made the decision to stay loyal?

I think you might be associating a little too much with modern society. Until not very long ago, females were chattle. Their fathers - their nominal owners until marriage - would try to protect their "purity" until they could find a suitable match in the interests of whatever mattered to the father. Romantic frolicking in haystacks was probably not sanctioned, but doubtlessly happened thanks to normal human drives. I expect that the feelings of the female in question regarding marriage were important to some degree, but probably only pragmatically in as much as the father cared about them.

Ah, morals.
 
Posted by Beautiful_Dreamer (# 10880) on :
 
I know my ex wasnt mean because of porn but I think the porn didnt help his attitudes toward women (maybe helped feed them) and I just wanted to tell how his use of porn made me feel.

Right or wrong, anything done in a relationship should be consentual between both partners, and should use consideration to the other partner's wishes. If your partner doesn't want you to use porn, out of consideration for them perhaps you shouldn't use it.

(last part not directed at anyone in particular).

[ 20. February 2006, 00:57: Message edited by: Beautiful_Dreamer ]
 
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Beautiful_Dreamer:
[...] Right or wrong, anything done in a relationship should be consentual between both partners, and should use consideration to the other partner's wishes. If your partner doesn't want you to use porn, out of consideration for them perhaps you shouldn't use it.

I assume you weren't interested in the pornography? Was he embarrassed about his voyeurism and try to hide it? Am curious if he had an explanation for ignoring your wishes, if so.
 
Posted by Beautiful_Dreamer (# 10880) on :
 
He thought I was a prude because I didnt like porn. I just don't have an interest in it and I didnt like being compared to the girls who were in porn. I dont think anyone would. He wanted me to be like those girls and I just, well, am not. It just isn't *me*.

And I did feel it wasnt the most Christian thing, but I wasnt judgemental toward him about it. I just didn't use it. My morals are for me and I don't apply them to others usually.

[ 20. February 2006, 01:13: Message edited by: Beautiful_Dreamer ]
 
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on :
 
So, he wasn't embarrassed or try to hide it? How did he compare you to the pron women? Play the videos and ask you to emulate it?
 
Posted by Beautiful_Dreamer (# 10880) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gort:
So, he wasn't embarrassed or try to hide it? How did he compare you to the pron women? Play the videos and ask you to emulate it?

Yes and ask me to dress like the porn women, and he would also complain about my body and say I didnt look good enough because I didn't look like a porn girl. However that didnt stop him from trying to paw at me constantly. I honestly hate how low my self esteem was or else I wouldnt have put up with that.

no he wasnt embarrassed, he thought it was his right as a man to use it and that I should just shut up and take it. Um, No.
 
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on :
 
I'm sorry that you had to experience that. It's difficult to speculate how this conflict wasn't revealed before marriage. Personally, I find that when you join someone in the sex act, you are agreeing to accept them as is... warts and all. It seems the only way to drop one's defenses and be yourself. But that may be just me.
 
Posted by Beautiful_Dreamer (# 10880) on :
 
I am so lucky I didnt marry this guy. This is my ex boyfriend and I am so lucky my husband is a good man.
 
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on :
 
Oh! Pardon me! I thought by "Ex" you meant husband!

Then, may I ask you about this:
quote:
Originally posted by Beautiful_Dreamer:
[...] And I did feel it wasnt the most Christian thing, but I wasnt judgemental toward him about it. I just didn't use it. My morals are for me and I don't apply them to others usually.

Forgive me for being frank, but as a non-christian I'm always curious about how their morals are applied to life decisions. Did you ever see a conflict between your view of pornography as "not the most christian thing" and the widely held view that premarital sex is unchristian?
 
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Beautiful_Dreamer:
quote:
Originally posted by Gort:
So, he wasn't embarrassed or try to hide it? How did he compare you to the pron women? Play the videos and ask you to emulate it?

Yes and ask me to dress like the porn women, and he would also complain about my body and say I didnt look good enough because I didn't look like a porn girl. However that didnt stop him from trying to paw at me constantly. I honestly hate how low my self esteem was or else I wouldn't have put up with that.

no he wasnt embarrassed, he thought it was his right as a man to use it and that I should just shut up and take it. Um, No.

I once was talkiing with a group of other women and each had a story about a boyfriend or husband who had compared her to porn stars (or sexy actresses or whatever.)One woman in particular was absolutely stunning-- tall, leggy, beautiful face, long, sexy hair, everything one would think would make her immune. Her boyfriend constantly told her she wasn't sexy enough, and that if she wanted to make him happy she's try to be sexier. You're just gonna have to trust me that this was ridiculous.The chick looked like she'd stepped out of a porn film.

I think this particular ploy is less about honest communication about attraction, and more about X man making sure woman X never feels good enough, so that X woman will not leave X man.

Another strange commonality was that a lot of the women were told by these guys that they didn't like skinny model types,or that X guy preferred bigger women, or whatever, which makes it particularly cruel. Nothing like thinking you are being accepted "warts and all" when in reality your faults are being catalogued to be trotted out as a weapon.

[ 20. February 2006, 01:46: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 
Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
I think this particular ploy is less about honest communication about attraction, and more about X man making sure woman X never feels good enough, so that X woman will not leave X man.

Quite common in abusive relationships. No woman should ever have to put up with that kind of shit.
 
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
We live, we learn. This woman definitely won't in the future.
 
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
I once was talkiing with a group of other women and each had a story about a boyfriend or husband who had compared her to porn stars (or sexy actresses or whatever.)

Right. "Or sexy actresses or whatever." These guys would have been jerks even if they'd never had access to porn.
 
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
No doubt. There seem to be plenty of guys with porn collections out there who are perfectly happy with "real women", and I'm sure they woudn't stick around if it was used as a cudgel against them.

I just thought it was weird that all those women seemed to have the same story-- but then(I left this bit out) it was an informal group therapy sort of thing,and we all had insecurity issues, so maybe we were all just targets for that sort of thing.

[ 20. February 2006, 01:57: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
[...] Another strange commonality was that a lot of the women were told by these guys that they didn't like skinny model types,or that X guy preferred bigger women, or whatever, which makes it particularly cruel. Nothing like thinking you are being accepted "warts and all" when in reality your faults are being catalogued to be trotted out as a weapon.

Yes, I agree. It can be also be devastating if one's self-worth in a relationship is focused on being accepted in the sex act. This can put tremendous pressure on the partner if their requirements for acceptance don't coincide. If for any reason the partner is not interested in sex on any given occasion, rejection is implied.
 
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
I'm not talking about that, I'm specifically talking about being verbally told you don't measure up to a specific person. Of course not every refusal of sex is in the same category.
 
Posted by Joyfulsoul (# 4652) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gort:
Perhaps the admonition against "worshiping graven images" applies here? I've always felt there was more to that warning than golden calves. Focusing desire on any image that diverts attention from the Real Thing is bad, IMO. This could be said of everything from worshiping status symbols to cosmetic surgery. Not that I feel we're doomed to hell as a result, but that there is a fundamental short-circuiting of a creative process in the warning... sort of a "don't waste your energy shooting blanks" thing. (sorry for my illiterate analogies)

Thank you, Gort. I really found this very insightful! [Overused]
 
Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Emma.:
....does that mean then that you basically chose someone you liked, slept wtih them and then made the decision to stay loyal?

Apparently it was as simple as making a commitment to each other in the fields holding hands, or jumping over a broomstick (i.e. African American slaves).

I have been chatting with my fiancee the psychologist about this as we have discussed it. She just finished reading "Marriage: A history" (which I heard choice excerpts from while she was reading it). It looks like an excellent book on the subject. If I can summarize the book, all this shit we have wrapped ourselves in about marriage is very very new and much more wrapped up in Christian cultural baggage/myth than anything HRH Jesus said. In fact the stuff that Jesus said was probably not what Jesus said about it, if you want to get right down to it, since the prudish Church Fathers got to work over those manuscripts before they got to us.
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Oh, yay. The Church Re-Wrote The Bible. [Disappointed] [Snore]

[Steps carefully around the Dead Horse, moving right along, then:]

I honestly can't see how porn WOULDN'T affect the person using it. I mean, everything affects people. I'm sure my habits vis-a-vis gardening magazines have an impact on the kind of person I am. And surely porn, being, um, more "pumped up" (so to speak) would be even more powerful. Ahem.

I don't think I want to be the kind of person I'd be if I used porn regularly. And I'm sure I wouldn't want to be married to that kind of person. So color me insecure. (And most of the women I know as well.)

I just don't think that using anything that causes a partner to feel massively insecure is a Good Thing. At least when the problem is as widespread among people as it seems to be, judging on anecdotal evidence like the above (I've heard stories like that too).

This is going to sound totally goofy (blame it on the wine I'm having) but what would you think of a man who spent hours of his free time drooling over new car advertisements, week after week.... and drove a five-year-old car? Wouldn't you figure he was shopping? There are hobbyists, but even so.... And I've never met a hobbyist that, given enough money, wouldn't go for one of the beauties in the glossies in a heartbeat.
 
Posted by RooK (# 1852) on :
 
It's certainly true that binding people to unrealistic expectations can be dangerous or damaging - be it presented in pornography, television, movies, or sacred texts.

[ 20. February 2006, 06:25: Message edited by: RooK ]
 
Posted by Chapelhead (# 21) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
It's certainly true that binding people to unrealistic expectations can be dangerous or damaging - be it presented in pornography, television, movies, or sacred texts.

<somewhat devil's advocate, for the sake of trying to work out the arguments in my own head>

If this is the case then shouldn't we act on the much more widespread unrealistic expectations in film and television, everything from movies that show a wildly exciting life to be had to cosmetic commercials? Surely porn is one part of this much bigger problem? But I don't see campaigns to get Hollywood or the advertising industry closed.

quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
Some of the greatest sensual art has been paid for by Christian churches over the centuries. Sure they tack on a halo or two to tone it down, or named the statue "David" but folks make no mistake that could easily have been named "Studboy" and gone the other way.

Presumably you're thinking of Michealangelo's David, rather than Donatello's Camp David - click on "Statues of David", then the third one down (observes the two-click rule for links to "porn"). [Biased]
 
Posted by ananke (# 10059) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
I think about a career with one of the highest rates of drug abuse and required counselling - commercial fishing - and I feel numbed.

I've had some experience with both careers by proxy) and the main difference lies in the totality of the career.

Commercial fishing takes over you life. You're ruled by tides and weather and repaying the constant loans. You watch numbers until they're meaningless then work for 72 hours, come home to your kids snarling and drunk just so you can maybe sleep before the next round. You face the death of friends and family constantly as well.

Porn takes over your life. You're a hole or a dick and that is it. You're valued by just how much you'll do for money, just how much abuse you're willing to take. You take jobs until you're numb enough to turn to anything to either feel or make yourself really numb. So after you've packed yourself with ice to ache the burn of the fiftieth man jacking off in you, you go home and try and sleep while worrying about just how that test is going to work out.

Difference being? Commercial fishing leaves room for hobbies and for enjoyment. There are expectations based on gender (i.e. not many people who are commercial skippers knit or sew) and they create their own problems but if someone announces at a party you work on boats, the request to com on your face rarely pops up.

Porn 'stars' get trapped into a societal ideal of what sex is and what it means. Porn consumers also cop this. Like I said previously I've got experience with the addiction dynamic of it and the 'value' aspect. I have read some truly beautiful stories that are categorised as porn. I've read some 'literature' that feels like porn. The object of the porn is something completely foreign - it's this homogenised 'perfection' of emotion. There is no room for the individual or for humanity.

To be clear though - I am talking mainstream porn, the stuff down at blockbuster and the stuff that is based entirely on the formula.

Also as far as the ability of porn to alleviate social constrictions - the strict adherence of porn to a formula (across gender mixes and class) and the fact it's appeal is based upon that forumla whch is the reason it can become addictive) I sincerely doubt that effectiveness. Not to mention the ex who was a porn addict once congratulated me on my insight when I mentioned the girl he really wanted was impossible because she was innocent enough to give him some sense of control but would behave like a whore for his enjoyment and adore him like his mother. He didn't see anything wrong with that. That he would want a partner to debase themselves truly for his enjoyment (not BDSM-styled games or roleplaying).
 
Posted by CrookedCucumber (# 10792) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
I wish Christians were forced to repeatedly read Song of Songs from cradle to grave.

I'd be inclined to agree, except that the problem with making Christians read the Song of Songs is that they tend to allegorize it away. I think there is an allegorizing tradition in Judaism as well. Were that not the case, I'm not sure the Song would have survived.

But, in my view, the people who got an erotic poem into the OT canon did us a bigger favour than they may have appreciated at the time.

I think it is quite wrong to say that Christians, as a whole, regard sex as dirty or sinful. The Christians I know are as enthusiastic about it as anybody else. More so, on balance, I would say. In fact, it seems that the early Christians were a pretty libidinous bunch, judging from the way St Paul had to keep nagging them about it.

As for pornography, I don't see that the ethical issue is exclusively a Christian one, or that Christians would necessarily find pornography more objectionable than anyone else. Surely the question, for the Christian as for anyone else, is whether the consumption of pornography has the potential to be harmful. If it is capable of souring human relationships, or encouraging people to treat each other in inhumane ways, or exposing people to health risks which they get no benefit from, then presumably pornography ought to be regarded as a Bad Thing.

I don't know whether pornography has any of these effects. My point is simply that I can't see why evaluating them requires dragging Christianity through the mud.
 
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ananke:
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
I think about a career with one of the highest rates of drug abuse and required counselling - commercial fishing - and I feel numbed.

Commercial fishing takes over you life. You're ruled by tides and weather and repaying the constant loans. You watch numbers until they're meaningless then work for 72 hours, come home to your kids snarling and drunk just so you can maybe sleep before the next round. You face the death of friends and family constantly as well.

I know this is a complete tangent, but I find this fascinating. I was talking to someone just the other day who came from a fishing town up north, and he said that the majority of his schoolfriends who had gone into the fishing industry were now alcoholic, on speed, on heroin, or on methadone treatment. And that serious drug addiction was more prevalent there than in the urban sink estates. He partly blamed the contrast between periods of extreme, often life threatening, stress and complete inactivity.

I was a bit dubious at the time, but you live and learn.
 
Posted by Craigmaddie (# 8367) on :
 
Rat, I've also heard that from people connected with the fishing industry in North Berwick. Drug use at home and out at sea is pretty endemic it seems.
 
Posted by The Lady of the Lake (# 4347) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
I think this particular ploy is less about honest communication about attraction, and more about X man making sure woman X never feels good enough, so that X woman will not leave X man.

Absolutely. [Overused] That ploy starts long before you get to porn though, i.e. there might be warning signals on the way. It can start with the narcissism, insecurity and control-freakery of the particular man who does this sort of thing. The last guy who wanted a relationship with me was like this. Within 1/2 an hour of the first date he told me off for not smiling when I was visibly thinking about a question he'd asked me. (He said 'don't do that' and did an impression of me furrowing my brow, which is what I- and a heck of a lot of people - do naturally when we're thinking. It's not emotionally possible to think seriously and smile at the same time. Clearly I was making him insecure and rocking his self-esteem by not fixing an inane magazine-style grin on my face all through the first date . Dear oh dear. [Roll Eyes] ) Throughout the long w/e we spent together, he complained about little things of no real significance, all cosmetic.(I said nothing and made a mental note as I was still 'assessing' him.) These controlling behaviours were interspersed with compliments and (rather clinical) attempts to be affectionate. A week later I got rid of him and told him behaviours x, y and z were controlling and completely unacceptable. What a great feeling that was. [Big Grin]
Anyway, interspersed in his many controlling comments to me was one reference to 1970s soft porn (the music in the restaurant sounded like it, apparently: a tell-tale attempt to get me to accept his use of porn, I suspect). I made a mental note, raised an eyebrow and carried on eating. The funny thing was that he was very short for a man, so probably not going to 'measure up' to the 'standards' for men ! [Devil]

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I don't think I want to be the kind of person I'd be if I used porn regularly. And I'm sure I wouldn't want to be married to that kind of person. So color me insecure. (And most of the women I know as well.)

On the contrary, saying clearly what you won't put up with in a marriage is a sign of security and a determination not to be used.
 
Posted by Catrine (# 9811) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

This is going to sound totally goofy (blame it on the wine I'm having) but what would you think of a man who spent hours of his free time drooling over new car advertisements, week after week.... and drove a five-year-old car? Wouldn't you figure he was shopping? There are hobbyists, but even so.... And I've never met a hobbyist that, given enough money, wouldn't go for one of the beauties in the glossies in a heartbeat.

I disagree with this. I know some couples (married, unmarried and engaged also some Christian and non-Christian) who watch porn in their relationships. Doesn't mean that they are going to go stray and cheat on their partners. Yep, I do agree that sometimes, it can have adverse effects on individuals and individuals in a relationship, but this is not always the case. Many have said that this has been a positive experience.
 
Posted by the_raptor (# 10533) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Lady of the Lake:
Anyway, interspersed in his many controlling comments to me was one reference to 1970s soft porn (the music in the restaurant sounded like it, apparently: a tell-tale attempt to get me to accept his use of porn, I suspect). I made a mental note, raised an eyebrow and carried on eating. The funny thing was that he was very short for a man, so probably not going to 'measure up' to the 'standards' for men ! [Devil]

1) Family friendly places playing cheesy 70's porn music is funny.

2) Height has nothing to do with penis size.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_jeremy

3) I know all this because I have watched this movie to many times.
 
Posted by ReginaShoe (# 4076) on :
 
Would this be the place to note that there is some scientific data to support the conclusion that there are detrimental effects to porn viewing? Perhaps the best starting place now would be a journal article that brings together a whole bunch of the previous research:

Oddone-Paolucci, E., Genuis, M. & Violato, C. (2002?). A meta-analysis of the published research on the effects of pornography. Medicine, Mind and Adolescence.

I put a question mark by the year because it is either 2000 or 2002 - I have seen it cited both ways, and I don't have access to the journal myself. But even before this analysis of the whole body of research, I was aware of multiple studies that found that men were more likely to agree with the "rape myth" (women secretly want to be raped and enjoy it, and/or bring it on themselves) after exposure to pornography. This analysis also mentions a connection to excessive masturbation and problems in intimate relationships.

After this study came out, it was picked up by a (very) few mainstream news sources and a fair number of conservative Christian "media watch" type organizations. From what I have seen, one of the authors (Violato) has made some strong statements about pornography that would seem to undermine his credibility, perhaps playing to the latter organizations in order to raise the profile of the study. However, I happened across his vita while trying to find the article and it seems sound and not especially agenda-driven.

It is actually interesting that this didn't get more widespread news coverage. Even if the meta-analysis is not the greatest work in and of itself, the many studies whose data were used for it still exist and comprised some 12,000 participants, so doesn't seem likely to be THAT off the mark.

But then, there was a fascinating article in American Psychologist some years ago that included both a meta-analysis of the enormous body of studies linking viewing of video violence with increased aggression, and an analysis of how this link was reported in the mainstream media. Unlike other connections that were statistically similar (tobbacco use with lung cancer, fatty diet with heart disease, condom use with reduction in risk of HIV infection), while the data supporting the connection got stronger, the media reporting got more equivocal. The authors also reported anecdotes of many failed attempts to get an accurate portrayal of the connection reported in newsmagazines. The fact that some of the same conglomerates that produce the news also make a tidy profit from violent TV shows and movies certainly leapt to mind. One wonders if a similar dynamic may be occurring with reporting of research on effects of pornography? (Or else, this is all being reported in journals way too obscure for the average science reporter :-)
 
Posted by the_raptor (# 10533) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ReginaShoe:
Would this be the place to note that there is some scientific data to support the conclusion that there are detrimental effects to porn viewing?

You can find some scientific data to support the conclusion that anything is detrimental. As pretty much everything can be detrimental under some circumstances.

Who cares that man agree with some statement more after viewing porn. Did it show that men were more likely to rape women after watching pornography (vs being sexually stimulated in other ways)? If not then it is a non story.

Watching and playing violent video games makes me have violent thoughts. But luckily for me I can distinguish fantasy and reality and don't become more physically violent (About the only thing that makes me physically violent is reading political news).

If you want to know how I feel about the idea of "thought crimes" then read _1984_.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by CrookedCucumber:
the problem with making Christians read the Song of Songs is that they tend to allegorize it away.

Well, they're not mutually exclusive, not to mention other levels of interpretation/understanding; I believe it can be about an earthly relationship and about the Church and Christ and probably a bunch of other stuff. [Smile]

David
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
[QUOTE]Height has nothing to do with penis size.

Shucks. I am 6 foot 7 inches tall!
 
Posted by the_raptor (# 10533) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
Height has nothing to do with penis size.

Shucks. I am 6 foot 7 inches tall!
I am about that tall as well [Biased]
 
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
It's certainly true that binding people to unrealistic expectations can be dangerous or damaging - be it presented in pornography, television, movies, or sacred texts.

Amen. Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right.
 
Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :
 
So far as I'm aware, the studies that have shown viewing violent porn changes men's attitudes about rape afiled to show that the effect was linked to the sexual explicitness of the material; rather it seemed to result from the linkage of sex and violence (as in many R-rated movies, such as almost anything by David Lynch).

Over a period of several decades there has been a concerted effort to demonstrate that porn is psychologically harmful, and on the whole the result has been a failure to demonstrate any consistent statistically significant negative effect on the viewers (the workers in the industry are another matter, though as has been pointed out the same things could be said of women working poultry processing plants and garment sweatshops).

I'll have to see if I can track down the study Regina mentioned. Meta-analysis is a tricky method--there can be a huge garbage in-garbage out effect if you aren't careful selecting your studies. And in an area where so much of the research is done by people with an agenda, the risk is even greater.
 
Posted by Beautiful_Dreamer (# 10880) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gort:
Oh! Pardon me! I thought by "Ex" you meant husband!

Then, may I ask you about this:
quote:
Originally posted by Beautiful_Dreamer:
[...] And I did feel it wasnt the most Christian thing, but I wasnt judgemental toward him about it. I just didn't use it. My morals are for me and I don't apply them to others usually.

Forgive me for being frank, but as a non-christian I'm always curious about how their morals are applied to life decisions. Did you ever see a conflict between your view of pornography as "not the most christian thing" and the widely held view that premarital sex is unchristian?
no, because the reason I think it isnt very Christlike is the fact that he was effectively using me and those other women for his own pleasure with no regard to anyone's feelings or not valuing them as a human. That is the main thing I find not Christlike. Although I also believe premarital sex is wrong, I dont judge others for having it. I just didn't have it. Some people think that the fact I did other things with this guy but didnt have intercourse made it right for him to treat me the way he did, but it doesn't.
 
Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :
 
OK, I found this study, which reviews much of the research done over the past 20 years, including the past decade (which is about how long it's been since I looked at this stuff). I'd still say there's a fair amount of ambiguity, but some things seem clearer. For those without the patience to wade through the analysis, the general conclusion seems to be that there is a correlation between pornography and sexual aggressiveness, but:

quote:
Associations between pornography consumption and aggressiveness toward women could be explained by a circular relationship between high coercive tendencies and interest in certain content in pornography, whereby aggressive men are drawn to the images in pornography that reinforce and thereby increase the likelihood of their controlling, impersonal, and hostile orientation to sexuality. The way relatively aggressive men interpret and react to the same pornography may differ from that of nonaggressive men.... The current findings do suggest that for the majority of American men, pornography exposure (even at the highest levels assessed here) is not associated with high levels of sexual aggression.... But among those at the highest "predisposing" risk level for sexual aggression (a little above 7% of the entire sample), those who are very frequent pornography users (about 12% of this high risk group) have sexual aggression levels approximately four times higher than their counterparts who do not very frequently consume pornography.
As the authors acknowledge, there are very likely a host of factors (cultural, psychological, etc.) that affect how any one individual responds to pornography (e.g., it may not have the same effect in Denmark as in the US).

[ 20. February 2006, 19:53: Message edited by: Timothy the Obscure ]
 
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
The Song of Songs is different than porn, though - because it is talking about how a person feels about his 'beloved' rather than his reaction to a load of total strangers.
 
Posted by Beautiful_Dreamer (# 10880) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
The Song of Songs is different than porn, though - because it is talking about how a person feels about his 'beloved' rather than his reaction to a load of total strangers.

True, it is talking about love, not just about how well someone gets him off and how they can do it better.
 
Posted by likeness (# 2773) on :
 
Just discovered this thread after being away for a few days.

Some thoughts which may - or may not - be helpful.

Firstly, discussing photographic porn, the camera is basically a nineteenth century invention, so in discussing photographic porn the scriptures may actually be of limited use. The camera would have been outside the direct experience of Jesus or Paul. (Incidentally, the Mennonite tradition tends to pay more attention to Jesus than Paul, rather than give them equal weight - but that's another thread.) For that matter, moving photography is a twentieth century phenomenon while the internet (which has only been discussed lightly here in relationship to production and dissemination of porn) is a late twentieth century development.

Secondly, dealing specifically with moving images, there's a continuum running from Art to Industry. At one end are films that might constitute high art, somewhere in the middle is Hollywood and "the movies" and somewhere down the other end is porno movies. (There's also the whole area of "exploitation movies", which covers porn but a lot of other areas as well - and raises questions about who - or what - is being exploited: the subject? the audience?) If you think of industry generally as being about producing goods for consumption, porno movies are in some sense the ultimate product for consumption; if all they portray is the rudimentary mechanics, in some sense there's something terribly honest about that. Don't get me wrong: I'm not trying to take a position for or against porn here, or for that matter trying to defend it, simply trying to pin down exactly what it is and how it functions.

Thirdly, I seem to remember that one of the Surrealists (possibly Bunuel?) commented, "eroticism is life, pornography is death." Again, I'm not taking sides on the quote, but this statement seems to me to resonate very definitely with the spirit of the current age and as such, whether people agree with it, disagree with it or have more complex responses, the remark certainly seems pertinent to the current discussion.
 
Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :
 
From the humorous surreal news department:

All 535 members of congress have gotten Hustler magazine for the last ten years.
 
Posted by Chapelhead (# 21) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
The Song of Songs is different than porn, though - because it is talking about how a person feels about his 'beloved' rather than his reaction to a load of total strangers.

But that doesn't mean it cant be read as porn by someone who is a "stranger" to the couple (especially someone with a passion for twin gazelle fawns). The relationship between the couple may be a loving one, but the relationship of the reader to the couple seems to be voyeuristic, if not pornographic.

Does a porn movie cease to be a porn movie if the people involved are married to each other (and love each other), or if they portray a loving, married couple?
 
Posted by CrookedCucumber (# 10792) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Chapelhead:
Does a porn movie cease to be a porn movie if the people involved are married to each other (and love each other), or if they portray a loving, married couple?

Good question. I define pornography as the depiction (by whatever medium) of one or more human beings in a way that is expressly intended to bring about sexual arousal. By my definition at least, the example you give is capable of amounting to pornography. In fact, IMO it is more capable of being pornographic than the usual stuff that pornographers dish up, which I find very unarousing. Watching complete strangers fucking one another without any emotional involvement doesn't do it for me, even at a visceral level; although I accecpt that it might have done 30 years ago [Smile]

If you think of pornography in different terms, then of course you might come to a different conclusion.
 
Posted by Light (# 4693) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:


Who cares that man agree with some statement more after viewing porn. Did it show that men were more likely to rape women after watching pornography (vs being sexually stimulated in other ways)? If not then it is a non story.


I think you are quite wrong. It is men (and women) who pass laws regarding the crime of rape and who sit as judges and jurymembers in courtrooms where rape cases are heard. They may also be doctors and counselors who take care of rape victims. If porn makes them more likely to believe that "women secretly want to be raped and enjoy it, and/or bring it on themselves" I think it is a serious matter.
 
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 
On the objectification thing ( and other stuff too ), it does strike me that attacking porn as the problem is wrong. If the problem is that some men objectify women as sex objects, then that is the problem. If some men consider that women waqnt to be raped, then that is the problem. That porn is part of their justifcation doesn't mean that it is the problem.

To go back to the alcohol analogy, if someone drinks a lot and becomes anti-social because of that, that isn't necessarily becasue alcohol is bad. It is more likely to be that the person has issues that they need to resolve, but that they are using alcohol instead of dealing with them.

Surely the same thing is true of porn. People who have a view of others as sex objects will tend to have that view whatever. They may use porn as a means to bolster that view, but that doesn't mean that the porn is the problem. It might mean that porn is a problem for them.

Incidentally, I know that I need to keep away from it, because my personality is such that it could, if I let it, become a real problem. So for me, it is wrong. But that is based on me not on the porn itself.
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
Perhaps I should get it off my chest.... so to speak.

It's very hard for me to comment about what's wrong with porn - mainly for the kind of reason that Schroedinger's Feline describes.

My only really damaging addiction in life has been pornography. I never progressed to become a fully fledged "sex addict" but I did manage to waste my time and harm a good chunk of my capacity to form relationships.

I still, occasionally, relapse.

For me, the availability of porn was a key factor. If it had been harder to get, I doubt I'd have become addicted.

It never harmed so as I'd show up as a statistic - I didn't progress to rape anyone, or even to damage my professional life (although came near).

I have to confess that posting on SoF is part of a recovery strategy - I invariably do it in those highly stressed moments at work when I click on internet explorer for a diversion.... posting while at work might not be ideal, but it's a hell of a lot better than the alternative (and given the hours I keep here, almost ever present) temptation.

But I don't want to get All Saints like about this - I wanted to also make the intellectual point that availability is a key factor, and the development of an addiction and undesirabile personal traits can occur under the influence of porn.

I don't think anyone here knows who I am.... [Paranoid]
 
Posted by unfaegne eorl (# 11013) on :
 
I don't know how one can get around the sermon on the mount (matthew 5:27-28)

You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
 
Posted by CrookedCucumber (# 10792) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
For me, the availability of porn was a key factor. If it had been harder to get, I doubt I'd have become addicted.

I wonder how much harder it would have had to be to get? It's always seemed to me that people are able to become addicted to things that are surprisingly difficult to obtain -- heroin, for example. I suppose it's possible that people come to addiction to these hard-to-obtain commodities through easier-to-obtain ones. Could a person develop an addiction to pornography by building up from, say, page 3 of the Sun?

I'm not being facetious (I hope) -- I'm genuinely curious. I have many problems in my life, to be sure, but thankfully pornography isn't one of them, so I don't really know a lot about it. Generally pornography has little effect on me except mild distaste [Hot and Hormonal]

I wonder if an excessive interest in pornography is something that has a positive feedback effect; that is, could any person, by his or her exposure to pornography, come to require increased exposure (as I believe is the case with heroin?) Or is it only something that affects people with a particular psychological makeup to start with?

Please pardon me if these are rude questions [Smile]
 
Posted by ReginaShoe (# 4076) on :
 
From what I have read (but alas, don't remember where I read it), the Internet has brought porn to a vast audience that it did not have before. I've known of someone who is a prime example of that. If not an addict to Internet porn and explicit chat rooms, he's come close enough for it to have some negative effects. Was brought up in a strict fundamentalist home. If he had ever been seen buying a Playboy magazine or had one ever been found in his room, he would have been in HUGE trouble. As it was, if I recall the stories right, he got into trouble for "misuse" of National Geographics and Sears catalogs with women's underwear being modeled. Throughout his adulthood, he has never purchased a pornographic magazine and apparently would never have done so - he could be seen, and it could be found later. However, the privacy and anonymity offered by the Internet has made it a completely different thing.

In general, a big help in self-control with difficult issues is putting up barriers or "pre-committing" - setting a loud obnoxious alarm clock across the room so you HAVE to get up, making sure you don't buy the fattening snacks so they are not a temptation while you are at home watching TV, etc. I should think it is really hard to put up those barriers when you have to use a computer anyway, there is no accountability (what you do can easily go undetected) and the temptation is just a click away.

By the way, I had to finish my earlier post quickly and be away from the computer for a while, but I should add that I was thankful to hear from Timothy the Obscure, whose opinion I value on the topic. Indeed, I never meant to imply that viewing pornography a time or two (or even frequently) would turn a reasonable and sensitive person into a raving sex fiend. Just as the occasional or even frequent hamburger doesn't mean you are going to keel over with a heart attack. And the quality of the original studies is definitely a potential issue, as is the direction of the causality - indeed, my example above may indicate some predisposition that was already there. But, all other things being equal, it seems possible that a very steady diet of it over a long time could be a subtle influence on behavior or attitudes, one of many of course. Just as, all other things (such as dietary restrictions, finances) being equal, the person who hears McDonald's commercials 50 times a day would seem more likely than someone who never hears them to choose McDonald's for lunch. If not, McDonald's is wasting a heck of a lot of money on their ads!
 
Posted by kempis3 (# 9792) on :
 
<sigh>

There certainly seems to be a vast audience for porn on the internet.

I'm very old fashioned here -- porn seems to me to be very boring.

Generally, I feel that if the man has married a good woman and the woman has married a good man, their life is very passionate and porn is not necessary.

But so many people seem to need it -- it's a sad, sad world.
 
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
~Well, when I read 'Song of Songs' I think how lovely it is that two people can be so much in love that they delight in each other. I don't see much evidence of the people taking part in porn being in love with each other. Therefore there is a qualitative difference in being given a window onto the former than the latter.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ReginaShoe:
if I recall the stories right, he got into trouble for "misuse" of National Geographics and Sears catalogs with women's underwear being modeled. Throughout his adulthood, he has never purchased a pornographic magazine and apparently would never have done so - he could be seen, and it could be found later. However, the privacy and anonymity offered by the Internet has made it a completely different thing.

Sounds to me like Internet porn is perhaps a good thing in his life, then, as long as it is in moderation, after an upbringing like that...
 
Posted by Jerry Boam (# 4551) on :
 
For those concerned with addiction and ease of access on the internet, there are several kinds of "accountability" software out there. One is being made available from xxxchurch as part of their anti-porn crusade.

I think I pretty much agree with RuthW's position on this. In another world, I wouldn't have a problem with it. As it is, the injustices built into the industry can't be ignored.

The sexual slave trade is so monstrous, and so large that it cannot but touch on all the sex businesses--Prostitution, Porn. The things that go on with human trafficking and exploitation of children are harrowing to learn about.

On a personal level, I know I respond to visual images of women and hetero sex... I cannot see that there is anything inherently sinful in this. On a practical level, with the world as it is, it can't not be sinful.

Life is better without it, but that's easy for me to say as a happily married man, with a good relationship with my wife. Not everyone is so fortunate and the sex drive is so basic and powerful, it's hard to know what to think.
 
Posted by ReginaShoe (# 4076) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
quote:
Originally posted by ReginaShoe:
if I recall the stories right, he got into trouble for "misuse" of National Geographics and Sears catalogs with women's underwear being modeled.

Sounds to me like Internet porn is perhaps a good thing in his life, then, as long as it is in moderation, after an upbringing like that...
Indeed, if it were in moderation, I'd be inclined to agree. I certainly wonder if certain parents'/church's tendency to condemn *any* expression of sexuality whatsoever in young people, even relatively innocuous things such as interest in simply the nude or scantily clothed form in and of itself, might make it harder for these young people to discern the line between healthy and unhealthy expressions of sexuality later on.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ReginaShoe:
I certainly wonder if certain parents'/church's tendency to condemn *any* expression of sexuality whatsoever in young people, even relatively innocuous things such as interest in simply the nude or scantily clothed form in and of itself, might make it harder for these young people to discern the line between healthy and unhealthy expressions of sexuality later on.

Absolutely. Which is why I'd hope that perhaps this is a phase he's going through, "making up for lost time" as it were, and will grow beyond it. I know for me that unless it's done really artfully or otherwise interestingly, much of the stuff out there even involving guys of the physical type I really find attractive, doing things I really like a lot, are kind of "eh, nice, I guess, but they're a total stranger I'll never meet..." But with regard to interests I am only beginning to cultivate OR local/visiting guys I am hoping to meet in person, those I am keenly interested in. It may simply be an aspect of growing up for me -- the new and unfamiliar is appealing for some reasons, perhaps due to lack of experience with it, and the getting-to-know-you aspect is appealing for others. (Strangely, once I've met them, I have less interest in just seeing their pics. It's like, "Oh, yes, that's so-and-so, I wonder how he's doing? Will he visit the area again soon? I hope we can get together" rather than "Ooo! Hot!")

As far as written porn/erotica goes, I don't tend to like much of it I've seen because the writing is simply bad. I've noticed parallels between bad sexual porn and bad religious fiction -- the story is treated as a means to a specific end, the characters exist solely to have sex or be converted, no real sense of realistic consequences and so on. I've occasionally considered bad Christian fiction to be a kind of religious porn (vs. good religious erotica).

David
 
Posted by Psyduck (# 2270) on :
 
ChastMastr: SOrry - you make a good point, it's just that
quote:
the characters exist solely to have sex or be converted
[Eek!] [Eek!] [Eek!]
 
Posted by cometchaser (# 10353) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by unfaegne eorl:
I don't know how one can get around the sermon on the mount (matthew 5:27-28)

You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

this brings us to that other thread - define lust. because if it is strictly surface lust - "dang, nice butt!" then we're all hopeless.

personally, I forgive my husband his lust for Catherine Zeta-Jones and he forgives my lust for Antonio Banderas, and we both just laugh about it. and I dont believe God is upset with the two of us for raising our blood pressure when we watch Zorro.

would I cheat on my husband with Antonio Banderas? despite my threats to him, of course not!

however, does the scripture above make watching porn a sin? perhaps. I honestly never looked at it that way before. I think porn is basically wrong, for all the reasons mentioned in the thread and more. so I don't watch it. but I have in the past. it's boring, mostly. and I find nothing tantilizing about people "acting" that stuff out.

it's just so much more fun in person!

but as I've said before, I dont really believe in "sin" i.e. an outside of ourselves, black and white law. I believe we need to think about our actions and stop hurting others and ourselves.

therefore - if I have a meeting with a man, and rather than converse with him mindfully, I'm picturing him naked - I would say that is a "sin" against him. AND against myself. 'cause really, who am I hurting the most?

dangit - this was supposed to be a short little post!

somebody shut me up!

Comet
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Psyduck:
ChastMastr: SOrry - you make a good point, it's just that
quote:
the characters exist solely to have sex or be converted
[Eek!] [Eek!] [Eek!]
LOL! Well, but that's what I mean -- in both the bad sexual or religious "porn" the characters are thinly described just enough to be converted or have sex, the nubile types seduced/preached to by the more experienced ones, there is little or no sense of the rest of the mundane world or the ordinary, boring, real-life aspects of things, and then they realize it was always this deep burning need they never were willing to acknowledge until it was pushed on them, the other aspects of life which in a good story (of whatever genre) would also be detailed simply aren't important, because the only thing that matters in the bad story is getting that character saved or screwed...

David
and I'm not even going to get into the "Left Behind" erotic fan fiction some people write
 
Posted by Beautiful_Dreamer (# 10880) on :
 
I think the main difference between written erotica and visual porn is that there is no real person being objectified-no one had to pose for a romance novel. But both can be addictive and both can give false images of what love and romance really are or what real people are supposed to be. I don't know many men who live up to romance novel heroes (but I dont read romance novels, so I wouldn't really know).
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
But surely this can be applied to any form of literature whatever? Hardly anyone is as brave as the action heroes in those sorts of books, as intelligent as those in spy or cyberpunk books, and so on...
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by CrookedCucumber:
I wonder how much harder it would have had to be to get? It's always seemed to me that people are able to become addicted to things that are surprisingly difficult to obtain -- heroin, for example.

Once addicted, you'll make the effort to get anything. It's the first contact - or first few contacts - where availability counts, and then during efforts at abstinence.

And here is a key difference between heroin and porn - if a heroin addict decides to break their abstinence, there are a few stages on the way that give them an opportunity to change their minds. With porn it's everywhere.

I think page 3 is enough, for a susceptible person during a spell of abstinence, to make you want to look for an internet link to get more. And perhaps enough as a first contact to make someone curious to look at more.

I think it depends on it's effect on the individual concerned - for some people it's just distateful, or mildly boring - or a brief effect. For others, it's absorbing - and they can't understand how anyone wouldn't want to get more whenever possible. This is the mindset of the addict for whatever substance is being considered - alcohol, porn, gambling....

For me the thrill of gambling does nothing more or less - alcohol I quite like but I'd never get addicted - porn, unfortunately, is my weak spot.
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Beautiful_Dreamer:
I think the main difference between written erotica and visual porn is that there is no real person being objectified-no one had to pose for a romance novel. But both can be addictive and both can give false images of what love and romance really are or what real people are supposed to be. I don't know many men who live up to romance novel heroes (but I dont read romance novels, so I wouldn't really know).

I think visual porn is much more addictive than written erotica.

It depends how you define addiction, though - I'd define addiction as a compulsive use, which persists despite overwhelming rational evidence that use is harmful to the individual concerned. Wanting to use something a lot doesn't necessarily constitute an addiction.

I don't know anyone who would use written material so compulsively - although plenty who'd use visual material like that. Written material often accompanies visual, of course.
 
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I think visual porn is much more addictive than written erotica.

Anytime you pump emotional energy into an image, you give it life on a certain level. Just like any living thing, it will seek to sustain itself. When it's life depends on your emotional energy, it will influence you to repeat that which gives it life. This can be said of any habit that depends on mindless repetition and voluntary submission of will.
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
But it ain't a living thing, Gort. It might suck the energy out like a living thing but it sustains you as much as a black hole.

I think that's the difference between being addicted to porn and 'addicted' to music, for instance. Music really is alive, and gives you something back when you listen/take part. It builds your capacity to feel and interact with people. Porn doesn't give you anything back - and it robs the energy that should be available for intimacy and interaction with other people in your life.
 
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
But it ain't a living thing, Gort. It might suck the energy out like a living thing but it sustains you as much as a black hole...

Of course it's a living thing. You think that everything that lives, walks around with skin and bones? It has a mental and emotional life that you have created. It doesn't want to be starved to death anymore than you do.

...and I didn't say it was sustaining you .
 
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on :
 
oh... and music isn't an image though it creates images.
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gort:
It has a mental and emotional life that you have created.

I think that's a point of difference.

I don't accept I am creating mental and emotional life in it. I think I am projecting that onto something dead and sterile. This can be escapist, absorbing - gratifying in the short-term.

But ultimately dead, addictive behaviour.

I think that's the difference between porn and art. (I'll accept that some porn could be art and vice versa - that lines might be difficult to draw etc. etc.)
 
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I don't accept I am creating mental and emotional life in it.

Interesting. You invest it with mental imagery and desire (emotion) and then give it physical manifestation, yet you think that there's nothing being created? I'm convinced we create living things constantly using the same process. Whether they become our children or our masters is the question.
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
Oh, I accept something's been created - just not that it's life. Not quite death, but certainly closer to it than to life.

[ 22. February 2006, 05:22: Message edited by: mdijon ]
 
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on :
 
Again, do you think that all life has a physical body like yours or a plant?
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
No. Art, music, stained glass windows.... all alive.

Porn - dead.

All this is my experience of it, of course. Maybe someone else manages to use porn in a "live" way - but that won't be possible for me.
 
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on :
 
quote:
For me the thrill of gambling does nothing more or less - alcohol I quite like but I'd never get addicted - porn, unfortunately, is my weak spot.
Doesn't sound like it's quite dead, yet. Sure it's not still raising it's ugly head? [Biased]
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
It's one of those things that is more dead the more active it is. The more it raises it's ugly head, the more life it sucks into it's black hole of a proboscis.

Feed it and it get's hungrier. Nuture it and it get's deader. Satisfy it and it grows ever less satisfied. Recognise it's harmful effect and it becomes more compulsive.

These are the marks of an addiction.
 
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Feed it and it get's hungrier. Nuture it and it get's deader. Satisfy it and it grows ever less satisfied. Recognise it's harmful effect and it becomes more compulsive.

Well, of course it does. It's a chip off the old block. My kids take after me, too!
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
Get thee behind me Satan, for though has in mind not the things of God but the things of men.

Kids aren't like that, anyway. But yes, it is a part of me.

Now return to thy lair and trouble me no further.

[ 22. February 2006, 06:24: Message edited by: mdijon ]
 
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on :
 
You were created in the image of God. The least you could do is realize how He went about it and take responsiblity for your creations. After all, they worship and demand your attention just as His children do.
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
Some of my creations were better not created.
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
PS Who says I'm not taking responsibility?
 
Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Caz...:
OK, thanks - that's clearer. [Smile]

Wouldn't that make all (pleasurable) sexual activity unhelpful though?

I was thinking about it... OK, it took me a few days, but while I was skimming through the Apostolic Constitutions today, I read this:

quote:
When the natural purgations do appear in the wives, let not their husbands approach them, out of regard to the children to be begotten; for the law has forbidden it, for it says: "Thou shalt not come near thy wife when she is in her separation." Nor, indeed, let them frequent their wives' company when they are with child. For they do this not for the begetting of children, but for the sake of pleasure. Now a lover of God ought not to be a lover of pleasure.
I think that this quotation shows clearly the faith of the ancient church. I also think that it shows how far from that faith we have gone.

By the way, this worldview has been confessed by at least two ecumenical councils.
 
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
Now a lover of God ought not to be a lover of pleasure. I think that this quotation shows clearly the faith of the ancient church. I also think that it shows how far from that faith we have gone.


If this ascetic form of the faith is what we should follow, perhaps we'd all be better off in sackcloth and ashes living like hermits in the hills.
I react strongly to this quote because I'm all for the enjoyment of pleasure (it is after all part of God's creation). But I'd far rather share that pleasure with a real, live human being than a picture. Perhaps it is different for those who are not fortunate enough to have close human friends. But I find it strange to comprehend - if indeed it is even true - how some people would prefer pictures to real live relationships. Surely that means something has gone wrong somewhere in their psyche?
 
Posted by Divine Outlaw Dwarf (# 2252) on :
 
Yet another stunning example of Andreas presenting his somewhat leftfield views as the clear teaching of the undivided church!

Pleasure is good. The problem with sin is not that it is pleasurable but that it is a barrier to the truest happiness, which human beings find in union with God and with each other.
 
Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :
 
Divine Outlaw Dwarf, you keep confusing Christ's gospel with sin. It seems that where you were brought up sin is a monster and everybody's fighting it. Live in peace! There's much more in life than sin.

The quotation I made is from the ancient Church and it is authoritative. Your version of the gospel is in disagreement with theirs. Get over it.
 
Posted by Codepoet (# 5964) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ReginaShoe:

In general, a big help in self-control with difficult issues is putting up barriers or "pre-committing" - setting a loud obnoxious alarm clock across the room so you HAVE to get up, making sure you don't buy the fattening snacks so they are not a temptation while you are at home watching TV, etc. I should think it is really hard to put up those barriers when you have to use a computer anyway, there is no accountability (what you do can easily go undetected) and the temptation is just a click away.

My brother once asked me to help him sort his computer out. He had installed some software called "covenent eyes" the basic premise of which was that it would monitor his internet usage, and would email somebody if he ever starting browsing certain web sites. Problem was that is was incompatable with something else, and because it was designed not to let remove it easily, he had to come to me to get the whole mess sorted out. But it was of interest as it provided a means of "pre-committing" as you have just described. However the problem with this theory is that if like me you know a few things about computers you could find away around the system if you wanted to, which makes the systems useless. But still - nice idea.
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
It does work a bit though, because the delay in having to disable or uninstall it is long enough to allow you to think again.

On a bad day, no help at all, but enough to stop a casual, unthinking slip.
 
Posted by Codepoet (# 5964) on :
 
I guess, but every good computer programmer writes some software to automate anything they have done more than twice, so you before you know it you would have an on/off switch on your desktop [Smile] In case you forgot how to google there is a more info here.
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
Someone with an on/off switch - or any easy disable set up - clearly isn't seriously intending to use the software to prevent themselves 'slipping'. One would hope that in a good moment, all such stuff would be disabled.

When you're just starting out in the recovery, even that 10-20 seconds can be valuable thinking time.
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Divine Outlaw Dwarf:
Yet another stunning example of Andreas presenting his somewhat leftfield views as the clear teaching of the undivided church!

I would suggest not dignifying it further.
 
Posted by Jerry Boam (# 4551) on :
 
A source for such software for those who need it:
X3 Watch
quote:
A person of your choice (an accountability partner) will receive an email containing all possible questionable sites you may have visited within the month. This information is meant to encourage open and honest conversation between friends and help us all be more accountable.
From the people at xxx church

I used to think this was all rubbish, but then I realized I was being myopic and narcissitic--just because I didn't have an addiction to porn, despite considerable exposure to it, I couldn't generalize that to a theory that it could not be addictive. I don't agree with a good deal of what they say at xxx church (e.g, "masturbation is selfish"), but I can see that this could be helpful to a person in trouble with porn.
 
Posted by The Lady of the Lake (# 4347) on :
 
That's good you realised it could become addictive. The problem AFAIK though is that even if it isn't, it does seem to be able to influence the attitude a number of men have towards female partners in a negative way.
I'd really like to see the church, and wider society, tackle that issue directly.
 
Posted by Whitelighter (# 11058) on :
 
Porn, funny at first, then all gets a bit boring after a while, same old stuff, id rather have a beer and watch a film with a story line, oh and a script other than 'oh yeah, you like that dontcha, take it big boy' etc. (yes my choice of porn would be from the 'Falcon' label) Oh, just joined Ship of Fools, Hi there to everyone.
xx
 
Posted by Jerry Boam (# 4551) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Lady of the Lake:
The problem AFAIK though is that even if it isn't, it does seem to be able to influence the attitude a number of men have towards female partners in a negative way.

The same could be said of the Church and it's traditions of patriarchy.

In fact, the same is said by my mum at every conceivable opportunity. Her favorite theory: Monotheism = Judaism = Christianity = Islam = Masculine insecurity, rage and hatred of women = social institutions designed to opress women and keep them as subservient second class citizens in a male dominated world, with all women not claimed and defended as male property subject to punitive rape.

When I point out that polytheistic societies with female dieites seem to show the same sorts of social structures and that some Christians, like her boy, here, are not like that, she says, "well that may be, but.." and then goes off again about bruqas and Fathers and Orthodox controlled islands where no woman may tread, etc.

Shall we then go on a campaign to abolish monotheistic, patriarchal religions? My mum would say yes.

The question is: is there something about written drawn, painted, photographed or filmed sex that somehow produces negative results in the observer, or the subject?

Your comment seems to suggest that there is some automatic, malign effect on the attitudes of male heterosexual viewers of pornographic images of women toward their female partners. I don't believe that this is true, though it may be true in some cases.

The idea seems to suggest that men are crude automatons, and that a certain range of visual stimuli produce a narrow and predictable inner response. This is unsupported by my observations of men and I don't believe it to be true of myself, though I recognize inherent bias in that analysis.

[ETA: lest you think it's just my mum, try this impassioned statement on Russian Orthodoxy ]

[ 22. February 2006, 16:29: Message edited by: Jerry Boam ]
 
Posted by the_raptor (# 10533) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Whitelighter:
Porn, funny at first, then all gets a bit boring after a while, same old stuff

You just need to get creative with Google's image search.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
Welcome, Whitelighter! I haven't seen Falcon stuff other than ads for it, I think...

David
 
Posted by The Lady of the Lake (# 4347) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jerry Boam:
Your comment seems to suggest that there is some automatic, malign effect on the attitudes of male heterosexual viewers of pornographic images of women toward their female partners.

Not quite. I was careful to say

quote:
it does seem to be able to influence the attitude a number of men have towards female partners in a negative way.
'A number of' means 'not all men', and therefore excludes the possibility of the negative effect of porn being automatic.

I think we all need to take responsibility for whatever images we have of the opposite sex (or the same sex for that matter).
 
Posted by Jerry Boam (# 4551) on :
 
But why then is this subgroup's problem "the problem?"

Perhaps I misunderstood. I thought you were saying that even when porn was not addictive, it has this negative consequence for some significant subgroup of men, and this was the problem that the Church and wider society have to take on.

To what extent might the problem these men have be caused by other factors? Might porn only have a negative consequence for them if they have been exposed to these factors?

I think that what we have to take on in Church and across the wider society is the attitude that women are second class humans. This delusion seems to be fed by a great deal of the Tanach, The Epistles of Paul and the writings of the early church... How do we deal with that history? Surely that must be part of dealing with the issue in the church and wider society?

Is the problem of some porn-using men's views of women all that is wrong with porn? Or is there something about making it and viewing or reading it that is intrinsically damaging to the people involved?

Regardless of whether or not there is something intrinsically wrong with it, can we deal with the reality that it is part of system in which women's lives and freedom are not valued--or are valued as cheap resources for the use and exploitation of others?

The issues raised in RuthW's post are a more compelling argument for an ethical resistance to porn* than the questionable possibility that some men may develop negative views of women because of exposure to it.


*by this I mean a comitment not to use it, support it, or condone the conditions that make it a problem.
 
Posted by the_raptor (# 10533) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jerry Boam:
Regardless of whether or not there is something intrinsically wrong with it, can we deal with the reality that it is part of system in which women's lives and freedom are not valued--or are valued as cheap resources for the use and exploitation of others?

[Killing me]

If anything most western made porn is an exploitation of the stupid men who buy it by the truck load. Most porn actresses are paid quite well.

And personally I don't see any difference between selling your body for porno's or selling your body doing back breaking labour. And you think most businesses value their employees lives and freedom, and don't think of them as a cheap resource? Did you miss the massive problem in western society of woman who want careers, not being able to get the time to have children, as they are expected to work 80 hours a week with unpaid overtime to move up the corporate ladder?

[Killing me]

You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.
 
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
And personally I don't see any difference between selling your body for porno's or selling your body doing back breaking labour.

Me neither. And I think it's disgraceful that people are viciously exploited so that we can eat fresh produce and buy inexpensive clothing.

quote:
And you think most businesses value their employees lives and freedom, and don't think of them as a cheap resource? Did you miss the massive problem in western society of woman who want careers, not being able to get the time to have children, as they are expected to work 80 hours a week with unpaid overtime to move up the corporate ladder?
No one here is arguing in favor of these things. Though it seems to me that women with skills so valued by the corporate world that someone wants them to work 80 hours a week probably have more economic options than the women who get into porn because it beats the hell out of giving blowjobs to strangers in alleys.

[ 22. February 2006, 19:11: Message edited by: RuthW ]
 
Posted by Jerry Boam (# 4551) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
If anything most western made porn is an exploitation of the stupid men who buy it by the truck load. Most porn actresses are paid quite well.

Did I say "Western porn?" (hint:NO)

Let's see some evidence on your pay claims. I think they are bullshit.

quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
And you think most businesses value their employees' lives and freedom, and don't think of them as a cheap resource?

Not an issue I was discussing, but, as it happens, no--I think many businesses value their employees lives and freedom to the minimum extent required by law. Again, this has little to do with the issues TLOL and I were discussing.

quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
Did you miss the massive problem in western society of woman who want careers, not being able to get the time to have children, as they are expected to work 80 hours a week with unpaid overtime to move up the corporate ladder?

No. In fact, I think these are related issues. Read my post again and you may be able to guess how.

quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.

Nor did I claim to be. Your point?
 
Posted by Jerry Boam (# 4551) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
...there are a lot of sucky jobs out there that people will do if someone will pay them enough. And I think he's right to say that the only thing different about the porn industry is that sex is involved; that we are as a culture weird about sex (and for Christians this goes double) is probably one of the main reasons we periodically get threads on the Ship about whether or not porn is okay and we don't get threads about whether it's okay to eat fish, which must be harvested by commercial fisherman at great personal risk.

I happen to think that porn should stay legal for the same reasons that I think prostitution and drug dealing should be legalized -- these things should all be out in the open so they can be more easily regulated and policed. But I also don't think we should kid ourselves that this will make everything okay. Workers in all sorts of less dangerous and less degrading occupations are exploited on a regular basis because some people are willing to exploit others and others are willing to be exploited or feel they have no better option.

Thought this might be a good moment to reiterate the good points that seem to have been lost on some... and to point to Amsterdam as a perfect example of what RuthW is discussing in the second paragraph. Legalization does make it easier to police and regulate the industy but it does not make the problems go away.
 
Posted by nicolemrw (# 28) on :
 
Seems to me that we're debating more the question of the morality of the porn industry rather than porn per se.

What if it were possible to create porn pictures that perfectly resembled humans but were totally computer generated? No living actress or actor to be exploited, just very well paid designers and programmers. What would the moral ramifications be?
 
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by nicolemrw:
What if it were possible to create porn pictures that perfectly resembled humans but were totally computer generated? No living actress or actor to be exploited, just very well paid designers and programmers. What would the moral ramifications be?

Same as they were prior to the invention of the camera (or daguerreotype, or whatever), IMO -- comparable to the use of alcohol. Some just aren't interested, some can consume responsibly, some shouldn't consume any, ever.
 
Posted by Jerry Boam (# 4551) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by nicolemrw:
Seems to me that we're debating more the question of the morality of the porn industry rather than porn per se.

What if it were possible to create porn pictures that perfectly resembled humans but were totally computer generated? No living actress or actor to be exploited, just very well paid designers and programmers. What would the moral ramifications be?

Can you separate porn from the industry that makes it? To me, this is the central issue. There may be others. What do you think?

Regarding computer generated porn, this is pretty much possible now. There are people who spend a lot of time coming close to this and lots of amateurs who work with pre constructed models and software like poser to create virtual pin-ups or sex scenes.

To complicate matters, among the texture and model sets that can be loaded into this software are some photorealistic kids...

Check out the galleries at http://www.renderosity.com/

There are plenty of landscapes, starships, and such like--but it's clear that there is a huge amount of time and energy going into the softcore porn side of rendering virtual images.

I only know about this because I work with graphic software and do some 3d modeling in my job--Based on this, I would imagine that there is a lot of much harder, nastier virtual porn out there. Maybe some Shipmates know more about this?

[edited to add: you need a login to see the galleries at Renderosity, but the marketplace is free. See these Poser-related offerings for an idea of what is out there.

[ 22. February 2006, 21:10: Message edited by: Jerry Boam ]
 
Posted by Jahlove (# 10290) on :
 
posted by unfaegne eorl

quote:
I don't know how one can get around the sermon on the mount (matthew 5:27-28) You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
How about:

“you self-righteous religious leaders who give people a hard time for sinning, you are hypocrites because you also have been consumed by the same desire, even though you may not have acted it out”
 
Posted by Jerry Boam (# 4551) on :
 
Food for thought: Richard Kadrey's "Second Floor Girls"

The story isn't porn. It deals with prostitution/sexual indentured servitude in a future with advanced biotechnology and may be disturbing to some readers.

The story says something about the way of thinking about people that can accompany use of porn and, I would imagine, is required for use of prostitutes.
 
Posted by ReginaShoe (# 4076) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by nicolemrw:
What if it were possible to create porn pictures that perfectly resembled humans but were totally computer generated? No living actress or actor to be exploited, just very well paid designers and programmers. What would the moral ramifications be?

You bring up an interesting point. As Jerry Boam points out, that is pretty much possible now. The question it brings up that is really sticky is - what about entirely computer-generated child pornography? No children were exploited in the making of it, but society *may* still have an interest in doing everything possible to discourage an appetite for this material.

Or, if computer-generated regular porn were analogous to alcohol, would computer-generated child porn be more analogous to heroin? (i.e., we don't care if you're not technically hurting someone else by just consuming this, we are still going to do everything possible to keep you from consuming it.)
 
Posted by the_raptor (# 10533) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
And you think most businesses value their employees lives and freedom, and don't think of them as a cheap resource? Did you miss the massive problem in western society of woman who want careers, not being able to get the time to have children, as they are expected to work 80 hours a week with unpaid overtime to move up the corporate ladder?
No one here is arguing in favor of these things. Though it seems to me that women with skills so valued by the corporate world that someone wants them to work 80 hours a week probably have more economic options than the women who get into porn because it beats the hell out of giving blowjobs to strangers in alleys.
But there skills aren't valued much. They are just expected to work 80 hours a week to keep costs down for their employer. Which makes them a team player and thus enhances their career.
 
Posted by the_raptor (# 10533) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jerry Boam:
Let's see some evidence on your pay claims. I think they are bullshit.

I have read it in multiple sources. The problem is finding a link using a search engine (I just get constant links to porn sites). It is easy to get men to perform in porn, but harder to get woman, which is why the women command the large paychecks (especially after they get famous). Coincidentally, did you ever notice how rare it is to see a porn video that focuses on a male star, but ones focusing on female stars are quite common?

I never said working in porn was nice. But there are plenty of people who I can think of that get exploited far worse for less money.

Found a BBC article about a British porn actress.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4157728.stm
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
(I just get constant links to porn sites)

Time to clear out those cookies.
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
From the BBC article;

quote:

The pay was poor to start with, but it gradually improved....The money really started rolling in when she got into producing her own shows and three years ago she had made enough to put a deposit down on a house.....Miss Thorne has plans to retire gracefully...."There are one or two who are in their mid to late 30s and are looking haggard and old. They have lots of plastic surgery and it's really just a freak appeal. It's so sad really,"

Reading between the lines it doesn't sound that great for most people most of the time. She only got enough for a deposit on a house when she was producing her own shows.
 
Posted by ananke (# 10059) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
I have read it in multiple sources. The problem is finding a link using a search engine (I just get constant links to porn sites). It is easy to get men to perform in porn, but harder to get woman, which is why the women command the large paychecks (especially after they get famous).

The women also have higher levels of injury and illness. And only a few are paid more, not all. Given the amount of porn outpaces the 'legit' film indutsry, the number of 'stars' is far less fo both genders.

Then you've got the ssues of worked exploitation as far as class and race go.


But to go onto the concept of porn without an industry - it still sets up a false mechanism of reward behaviour. It still sets up physical intimacy as a reward for no action. Not to mention the escalation factors - anal wasn't common fifteen years ago. Now it is in almost every flick. Then there is the access factor - ease of access triggers behaviours otherwise not seen in individuals. Anyone here have push-button morphine? Different behaviours for different release systems.
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ananke:
Then there is the access factor - ease of access triggers behaviours otherwise not seen in individuals. Anyone here have push-button morphine? Different behaviours for different release systems.

Perfectly described.
 
Posted by Light (# 4693) on :
 
Why wouldn't people who view a lot of porn be affected by the attitudes to women in porn?

I know that I am affected by attitudes in the video games I play, in the literature I read and what I watch on TV. I choose to distance myself from some material since I don't want to become a certain type of person.

Advertising exists because the advertisers believe we will be affected by their repeated message. Do you think companies would spend so much money on advertising if it didn't work?

I am not saying that everyone will be affected to the same degree or that all porn contains a demeaning attitude towards women, but I think it is naive to deny the possibility of porn affecting men's attitudes towards women.
 
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by nicolemrw:
Seems to me that we're debating more the question of the morality of the porn industry rather than porn per se.

What if it were possible to create porn pictures that perfectly resembled humans but were totally computer generated? No living actress or actor to be exploited, just very well paid designers and programmers. What would the moral ramifications be?

You'd get a lot more people taking up graphic design as a job...

This is the point that has been made a number of times, that the problems with those for whom porn is a problem are problems with them primarily. Making it virtual ( and so removing some of the limitations with using real people ), would only make that situation worse.
 
Posted by Real Ale Methodist (# 7390) on :
 
quote:
"There are one or two who are in their mid to late 30s and are looking haggard and old. They have lots of plastic surgery and it's really just a freak appeal. It's so sad really," she says.
Good proof about what was said about porn giving unrealistic expectations of appearence. I'll soon be twenty; if I look at some of the people of my own age who I currently find attractive I am pretty sure I will still find them attractive when we meet again in ten years time. I would certainly hope so. The 3d images linked to earlier showed somethign quite similar. Girls(they didn't look like women) in stupidly short skirts; lots of perfectly globular breasts.

I still can't think of myself to think of porn as inherently evil; and practically a lot about it which is wrong is common with a lot of things. One main problem is surely that it can facilitate that thing called Lust; lust is interesting because it harms the originator as much as the object. Lust doesn't help men become well rounded people, indeed in some forms all it does is demean and infantilise the lustee; reducing them to a drooling hormone-slave. Pornography can do the same thing. I'm not going to pretend I live in some sexually pure world - I'm at the back end of my teens afterall. Pornography/masturbation has the effect increasingly of depressing me. I feel stupid and weak as a result of it. I still have a sex drive and if it isn't satisfied I will occasionally return to the computer; only to come away dissapointed. Nothing like the warm glow of sharing yourself with someone you 'love'(whatever that means).

The second half of the problem with porn has been well trodden - yes I think it objectifies women, yes I think it makes men think of women as sexual objects in a way that diminishes personality and the like, and yes I think that may be a thin end of the wedge with all sorts of more serious abusive practices on the other end. I am also a big believer in ethical procurement; until someone starts putting a code of practice mark onto pornography then one has no guarentee quite what one is supporting.

Pornography like lust cuts both ways it objectifies the one and infantilises the other. Even before we put Christianity into the picture I think both these things are wrong. Once we factor in christianity; I don't thinksome of God's most amazing creations where supposed to be reduced to their servile sexual functions; nor are we making full use of our talents and abilities that God has given us if we allow ourselves to be ruled by a fleshy appendage. (Easier said than done perhaps)
 
Posted by the_raptor (# 10533) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
From the BBC article;

quote:

The pay was poor to start with, but it gradually improved....The money really started rolling in when she got into producing her own shows and three years ago she had made enough to put a deposit down on a house.....Miss Thorne has plans to retire gracefully...."There are one or two who are in their mid to late 30s and are looking haggard and old. They have lots of plastic surgery and it's really just a freak appeal. It's so sad really,"

Reading between the lines it doesn't sound that great for most people most of the time. She only got enough for a deposit on a house when she was producing her own shows.
And you think most young workers make enough to get house deposits? My housemate has been working in IT for the last six years and now has enough to afford the deposit on a small rural block. And I live in an extremely cheap area. Workers today will be lucky if they can afford a home deposit when they are in their mid-30's.
 
Posted by Real Ale Methodist (# 7390) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
And you think most young workers make enough to get house deposits? My housemate has been working in IT for the last six years and now has enough to afford the deposit on a small rural block. And I live in an extremely cheap area. Workers today will be lucky if they can afford a home deposit when they are in their mid-30's.

A few of those workers will be lucky and get onto the right ladder at some stage and be able to afford a house deposit in three years - like Ms. Thorne. This doesn't make it easier for all those others to get a house; as you have pointed out. Likewise just because Ms. Thorne is directing and making a good wage it doesn't mean everyone in porn can get into directing and have a house three years later.
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
My housemate has been working in IT for the last six years and now has enough to afford the deposit on a small rural block.

He probably isn't the person you'd pick for an interview to demonstrate how successful one can be in IT.

If this lady's on the top of the tree (so to speak) I infer a lot about the pyramid below her. There is a hint that it was only when she started running her own show things picked up.
 
Posted by The Lady of the Lake (# 4347) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jerry Boam:
The question is: is there something about written drawn, painted, photographed or filmed sex that somehow produces negative results in the observer, or the subject ?

If you read an earlier post of mine on the thread, you'll see that I tried to make a point about focus on genitals versus erotic art that looks at the whole person, symbolic ideas, etc.
So I don't think that it's easy to say that depictions of sex always produce negative results in the observer. However, my own attitude is that when people tend to discuss the problem that porn can cause re: men's attitudes to women, they're talking about the photographic or film variety that has been available to the mass of people since the 1950s. They're not talking about nudes depicted in art history.

quote:
To what extent might the problem these men have be caused by other factors ? Might porn only have a negative consequence for them if they have been exposed to these factors ?
No. I think regular vieweing of pornography (as I've defined it in this post) causes problems by itself actually. Among other things, the very fact that it is based on photography makes it, in my view, voyeuristic and exhibitionist. The fact is, most real women do not look like the 'women' who appear in any pornography. This inevitably invites comparison between women who appear in porn and the vast majority who do not.
It must surely mean that the way men who have grown up in a society where porn has just about been normalised think about women, is different to how previous generations of men think of women. It means that they are more likely to have unrealistic expectations of what prospective female partners should look like and behave like. For most women, this is intolerable and unacceptable. I don't see any good reason for any man to make excuses about using porn while in a relationship with a woman. To me it would constitute a form of infidelity, and therefore punishable by ending the relationship, should the offender refuse to amend his ways. That's certainly how a lot of women I know think too.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Lady of the Lake:
I don't see any good reason for any man to make excuses about using porn while in a relationship with a woman. To me it would constitute a form of infidelity, and therefore punishable by ending the relationship, should the offender refuse to amend his ways. That's certainly how a lot of women I know think too.

I assume this would also apply to a woman using porn while in a relationship with a man?

David

[ 23. February 2006, 17:21: Message edited by: ChastMastr ]
 
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Lady of the Lake:
The fact is, most real women do not look like the 'women' who appear in any pornography. This inevitably invites comparison between women who appear in porn and the vast majority who do not.
It must surely mean that the way men who have grown up in a society where porn has just about been normalised think about women, is different to how previous generations of men think of women. It means that they are more likely to have unrealistic expectations of what prospective female partners should look like and behave like.

I think it's worth pointing out that porn has changed a lot in recent decades because of the advent of plastic surgery and the changes in beauty standards. The porn at websites that feature "vintage porn" looks very different to me than newer porn. Heck, I could have posed for pornographic pictures 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago; today I am too tubby and my breasts too natural.

I'm not convinced that men today think about women any differently than they used to. Men have always been interested in looking at women and at representations of women, and I know a fair number of men who do not find modern porn at all sexy precisely because it's not real-looking -- hence the market for vintage porn. Also, it doesn't take porn to give men unrealistic ideas about women. I have one friend who said the first time he saw a woman lying naked on her back he was surprised and a bit disappointed that her breasts didn't have the same shape they had when she was upright and wearing a bra.
 
Posted by Jerry Boam (# 4551) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Lady of the Lake:
No. I think regular vieweing of pornography (as I've defined it in this post) causes problems by itself actually.

Here we seem to be back in the territory of automatic corruption of male automata that you were at some pains to distance yourself from earlier.


quote:
Originally posted by The Lady of the Lake:
Among other things, the very fact that it is based on photography makes it, in my view, voyeuristic and exhibitionist.

This seems more like the philosophy of the Taliban than anything I am familiar with. What is wrong with photography? I have pictures of my kids on the shelf over my desk. They are walking in the park, their hair caught in the low, golden sun of an early summer evening. As I revel in the memory of the glorious day when those pictures were taken, am I somehow conditioning myself to be disapointed when I come home to them on rainy days?

quote:
Originally posted by The Lady of the Lake:
The fact is, most real women do not look like the 'women' who appear in any pornography. This inevitably invites comparison between women who appear in porn and the vast majority who do not.

The universe of porn contains many, many images of women who are not the silicone enhanced, surgically modified ideals you seem to imagine. There is certainly a great constellation of imagery of that kind of subject, but there is much, much that is not.

quote:
Originally posted by The Lady of the Lake:
It must surely mean that the way men who have grown up in a society where porn has just about been normalised think about women, is different to how previous generations of men think of women. It means that they are more likely to have unrealistic expectations of what prospective female partners should look like and behave like.

It would certainly mean that if men were all dullards with problems distinguishing packaged adworld imagery from reality. Must suck to be them, eh? Imagine how disappointed they are when they sit down to dinner and it doesn't live up the expectations that have been written into their psyches by exposure to Gourmet magazine and the Food Channel. "This isn't like it was when Nigella did it!" And think of the sad deflation they feel as they compare their flats and houses with the expectations generated by Architectural Digest and HG... Not to mention the pernicious influence of motion pictures. Why, I remember how hurt and dissapointed I was when I met some old friends at a restaurant in New York and our conversation wasn't the one from "My Dinner with Andre" that I was lusting for and expected as my due...

quote:
Originally posted by The Lady of the Lake:
I don't see any good reason for any man to make excuses about using porn while in a relationship with a woman.

I would think that a relationship in which either party felt they had to make excuses for their behavior was not particularly healthy to begin with. Sounds a bit like the man is infantilized in this hypothetical relationship.
 
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jerry Boam:
Why, I remember how hurt and dissapointed I was when I met some old friends at a restaurant in New York and our conversation wasn't the one from "My Dinner with Andre" that I was lusting for and expected as my due...

Dude, you are sick. [Biased] [Big Grin]

It seems to me that the near-constant presence of airbrushed and/or digitally manipulated images of surgically enhanced women (who also spend three hours in the gym every day) wearing clothes is a much bigger problem than porn is for everyone's ideas of what women should look like. The images of their male counterparts aren't quite as ubiquitous, but they aren't very helpful either.
 
Posted by Jerry Boam (# 4551) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
It seems to me that the near-constant presence of airbrushed and/or digitally manipulated images of surgically enhanced women (who also spend three hours in the gym every day) wearing clothes is a much bigger problem than porn is for everyone's ideas of what women should look like. The images of their male counterparts aren't quite as ubiquitous, but they aren't very helpful either.

I think you are right. I am reminded of a scene reported by a friend who goes to gym in milburn: a mother and teenage or young adult daughter, both on the treadmills, both looking at pictures of women in underwear in FHM magazine. My friend was saying, "what has happened that this woman thinks she needs to look like this? And is teaching this pathology to her daughter?" Maybe a guy who grew up on porn did it to them... but it seems far more likely that this is an internal process with input coming mostly from adverising and it's unrelenting message that we are all desperately inadequate and unworthy and the only salvation from our state of total inadequacy is in the unceasing purchase of the advertised products and services.

How much anorexia is fed by the expectations of the beauty industry, rather than porn?

Is the world of women's footware, (a big deal in New York with a growing number of women having bones shortened or removed from their feet so they can fit into Blahniks or whatever the current thing is...) driven by porn-fueled male expectation? I think not. Straight men, with the exception of certain fetishists, generally could not be less interested in shoes.
 
Posted by unfaegne eorl (# 11013) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jahlove:

...
“you self-righteous religious leaders who give people a hard time for sinning, you are hypocrites because you also have been consumed by the same desire, even though you may not have acted it out”

If I read through that chapter though, it sure sounds like he's speaking to ordinary people. There are several references in the third person to scribes, pharisees, the sanhedrin, tax collectors, etc.

This might sound sarcastic, but really it's just an honest question - how much weight is scripture generally given around here? I'm new here, and I realize there are all sorts of people on these boards. But, (again, not being sarcastic), I was suprised that I was almost the only poster in 5+ pages to involve the Bible in the discussion. (sorry if this is off topic)
 
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jerry Boam:
The universe of porn contains many, many images of women who are not the silicone enhanced, surgically modified ideals you seem to imagine. There is certainly a great constellation of imagery of that kind of subject, but there is much, much that is not.

I was starting to wonder whether US porn was dramatically different than European. Certainly a good number, maybe even the majority, of the women I've seen in porn films have not lived up to any ideal. A great many are past the first bloom of youth, stretch-marked, plump or uncomfortably skinny, pretty normal in fact (and not airbrushed, well lit, or filmed in positions designed to flatter). Perhaps I've had the misfortune to encounter a low class of porn film, of course, but in my experience they're more characterised by desperation than by idealised beauty. Advertising is a lot more idealised.

One reason why I suspect most of the women in these films haven't reached those heady heights of...um...scraping up a deposit on a house.

For the record I pretty much agree with what RuthW has said.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by unfaegne eorl:
This might sound sarcastic, but really it's just an honest question - how much weight is scripture generally given around here?

Almost wholly depends on the poster and his/her beliefs about Scripture.

I think Jerry Boam is spot on about the notions of what kind of looks, body, clothes, etc. we are all "supposed" to have coming from a wide variety of sources.

Though I'm still inclined to blame Barbie. (Half-kidding. But Kim Possible is still far cooler than Barbie.)

David
 
Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :
 
quote:
a good number, maybe even the majority, of the women I've seen in porn films have not lived up to any ideal.
Then there are the specialty markets in porn starring heavy women, "mature" women, pregnant women... Minority tastes, obviously, but they do argue against any simplistic cause-effect chain. And the "ideal" as found in Vogue is quite different from the ideal in the masculine imagination--one study found that the ideal female body identified by men was about 15 pounds heavier than that identified as ideal by women.
 
Posted by ReginaShoe (# 4076) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jerry Boam:
It would certainly mean that if men were all dullards with problems distinguishing packaged adworld imagery from reality. Must suck to be them, eh? Imagine how disappointed they are when they sit down to dinner and it doesn't live up the expectations that have been written into their psyches by exposure to Gourmet magazine and the Food Channel. "This isn't like it was when Nigella did it!" And think of the sad deflation they feel as they compare their flats and houses with the expectations generated by Architectural Digest and HG...

Actually, interesting that you bring that up. There was an article in Scientific American a few months ago about the health effects of poverty. To sum it up simplistically, the point was that there was an effect of chronic stress over and above effects of things like bad diet and little access to health care. And this stress was the worst not for the poorest globally, but the poor in societies where the difference between rich and poor was the greatest. A big source of stress was not just the privation itself but the fact that their situation fell so far short of what it seemed it was "supposed to be", based on what they saw in the media and around them. While that's not JUST a reaction to "packaged adworld imagery", all that imagery can't be helping matters any either.

As I have said before, I don't believe that some exposure to porn is by itself going to turn a healthy sensitive guy into a drooling rapist. There are many, many factors that affect behavior, and prior exposure to media of whatever type usually seems to be a fairly minor one. But there can be an influence, which is not to reduce the person to a robot or say that it is anywhere near the most important influence. Again, if I hear a McDonald's commercial, it does not compel me to drop everything and go buy a burger. Yet, if I hear 20 McDonald's commercials a day, I might be more likely to decide to go there when I'm hungry than if I never had heard any (or had heard 20 Burger King commercials instead). That doesn't make me a slave to advertising, it just means that the media is one among many factors that can affect my behavior.

In the case of pornography, based on the excellent material that Timothy linked to, it appears that the link between pornography use and negative sexual attitudes/behavior is mostly limited to those already predisposed to problems because of other factors - but, for those individuals, there is some small tendency for pornography to exacerbate the problems.

Regarding the view of women portrayed in pornography - I am far less concerned about ideal body type presented (if that is indeed what is presented), than I am about the behaviors presented. I am far less worried about being compared to the woman with the boob job than about being compared to the woman who desperately wants to have sex four times a day. (And I probably just painted a huge target on myself, but there you go.)
 
Posted by showaddy (# 9282) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by unfaegne eorl:
If I read through that chapter though, it sure sounds like he's speaking to ordinary people. There are several references in the third person to scribes, pharisees, the sanhedrin, tax collectors, etc.

This might sound sarcastic, but really it's just an honest question - how much weight is scripture generally given around here? I'm new here, and I realize there are all sorts of people on these boards. But, (again, not being sarcastic), I was suprised that I was almost the only poster in 5+ pages to involve the Bible in the discussion. (sorry if this is off topic)

Eorl - all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, much - perhaps most - of the discussion round here is about the love of discussion, not about the love of God. It's like a sort of freelance theological college.
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
My view is that I don't think anybody has a right to complain about bible quotations per se. The bible is often relevant to the discussion - and can be quoted.

However, not everyone accepts the Bible is inerrant (see dead horses discussion) - not everyone accepts the Bible should be interpreted in a particular way - and some don't believe the bible at all.

So the way bible verses should be used here (IMHO) are the same way as in any polite discussion between friends of different viewpoints. As informative of the conversation - but not necessarily authoritative - and not necessarily binding on all participants.

Having said all that, personally, I agree with you that those verses would make me conclude that pornography isn't in line with what Jesus said.

(PS All this is just my opinion - not policy of the board(s))

I'd not characterise myself as simply a lover of discussion - what is more important to me is learning - sometimes just about what other people think - sometimes about what I think - and sometimes changing my mind on something.
 
Posted by CrookedCucumber (# 10792) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by unfaegne eorl:
This might sound sarcastic, but really it's just an honest question - how much weight is scripture generally given around here? I'm new here, and I realize there are all sorts of people on these boards. But, (again, not being sarcastic), I was suprised that I was almost the only poster in 5+ pages to involve the Bible in the discussion.

I suppose this is because most people who take part in these dicussions, even those who support the inerrancy of scripture, realize that scripture has to be interpreted carefully, in context, and in light of whatever other sources of authority one accepts. Given that pornography (in the myriad forms we know it) was more-or-less non-existent in the 1st-century Near East, even more caution than usual is required. If the passage quoted is applicable to pornography at all, presumably it is applicable only by analogy.

Consequently, great as my respect for the Bible is, I can't help thinking that this particular topic is better discussed without dragging scripture through the mud.

Just my $0.02, of course.

[ 24. February 2006, 10:27: Message edited by: CrookedCucumber ]
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by CrookedCucumber:
Given that pornography (in the myriad forms we know it) was more-or-less non-existent in the 1st-century Near East, even more caution than usual is required.

Although presumably looking at a woman in lust covers it. It's hard to imagine Jesus adding the rider "except when it's a photograph, of course... especially a virtual image. Those are safe."

I wonder where the birth of porn was? I understand the name means writings of prostitutes, but is that because such material fulfilled a similar role at some stage in the ancient world?
 
Posted by showaddy (# 9282) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by CrookedCucumber:
Given that pornography (in the myriad forms we know it) was more-or-less non-existent in the 1st-century Near East, even more caution than usual is required.

Although presumably looking at a woman in lust covers it. It's hard to imagine Jesus adding the rider "except when it's a photograph, of course... especially a virtual image. Those are safe."

I wonder where the birth of porn was? I understand the name means writings of prostitutes, but is that because such material fulfilled a similar role at some stage in the ancient world?

"images of prostitutes" might be closer.

Earliest records of pornography are from the old Greek city of Upashelph and the late egyptian temp of Nyu Zaijints.
 
Posted by CrookedCucumber (# 10792) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Although presumably looking at a woman in lust covers it. It's hard to imagine Jesus adding the rider "except when it's a photograph, of course... especially a virtual image. Those are safe."

Well, despite my previous comments about not dragging the Bible through the mud...

As I understand it, the word epiqumew, rendered `lustfully' in the RSV comes from epi (over), and potheo (to yearn). I believe the same word is used in the NT to express other forms of longing or yearning (e.g., longing to return home, etc). I suggest that, used in the present context, the word means `desire' (presumably for sexual consummtion). The ESV translates the relevant passage to say ``looks at a woman with lustful intent''. This is way different from `lustfully', in that the ESV version implies a hope for consumation, as the original Greek does (in my view).In no sense can the word reasonably be used to express mere sexual arousal.

I just don't see any way that the words attributed to Jesus can have any bearing on pornography at all, in any medium.
 
Posted by the_raptor (# 10533) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
My view is that I don't think anybody has a right to complain about bible quotations per se. The bible is often relevant to the discussion - and can be quoted.

However, not everyone accepts the Bible is inerrant (see dead horses discussion) - not everyone accepts the Bible should be interpreted in a particular way - and some don't believe the bible at all.

Oh I accept those bible verses as valid, I break them every day though (I don't come within a mile of justifying myself via the OT law).

Christians shouldn't look at porn. They also shouldn't do a whole host of other things that we do every day as falliable human beings. And I personally feel that looking at porn does minimal harm compared to various other wrong things we do all the time. I feel buying clothing that has been produced in sweatshops to be a much worse issue, and I feel that generally sexual morality is debated to much within Christianity and real issues are ignored.
 
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I wonder where the birth of porn was? I understand the name means writings of prostitutes, but is that because such material fulfilled a similar role at some stage in the ancient world?

I've always heard it rendered as 'depiction of whores'. Whores, as I understood it, because the greek term in question was the one referring to slaves used for prostitution rather than the other one referring to higher-class concubines who tended to be educated and relatively self-determining (in so far as any greek women of that time were educated and self-determining).

If that's true, I don't know how meaningful it is since I don't know when the phrase was coined and applied.
 
Posted by the_raptor (# 10533) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
quote:
a good number, maybe even the majority, of the women I've seen in porn films have not lived up to any ideal.
Then there are the specialty markets in porn starring heavy women, "mature" women, pregnant women... Minority tastes, obviously, but they do argue against any simplistic cause-effect chain. And the "ideal" as found in Vogue is quite different from the ideal in the masculine imagination--one study found that the ideal female body identified by men was about 15 pounds heavier than that identified as ideal by women.
I second that. I find fashion models to be repulsive, most of them look like boys.
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by CrookedCucumber:
I just don't see any way that the words attributed to Jesus can have any bearing on pornography at all, in any medium.

Unless you have any lustfull intent, that is. Some might be able to look at porn without lustfull intent.... certainly I can't.

Lustfully vs lustfull intent does strike me as splitting sub-hairs.

But I don't think Jesus intended those words to consider specific instances and their different cultural settings... I think the point was that crimes of thought are crimes of thought - be that hate and murder, or lust and adultery....

Obviously all of us hate, and all of us lust. Most of the sermon on the mount is impossible to practically apply - turning cheeks, doing whatever is asked, walking extra miles... so I'll accept it's not straightforward....

...but "inapplicable in any way" on the basis of the distinction between lustfully and lustfull intent sounds like linguistic hair splitting.

Now there's a film title waiting to be made.
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
And the "ideal" as found in Vogue is quite different from the ideal in the masculine imagination--one study found that the ideal female body identified by men was about 15 pounds heavier than that identified as ideal by women.

Twice as heavy, then.
 
Posted by CrookedCucumber (# 10792) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by CrookedCucumber:
I just don't see any way that the words attributed to Jesus can have any bearing on pornography at all, in any medium.

Unless you have any lustfull intent, that is. Some might be able to look at porn without lustfull intent.... certainly I can't.

Well, I don't think you can have `intent' in a vacuum. Surely you have to intend some outcome? The ESV interpretation suggests to me that the `intent' in question is the intent to consumate sexual intercourse. But that's just my interpretation, of course.

But the Greek rendered `lustfully' or `with lustfull intent' can also be translated perfectly well as `longingly', or `yearningly' (as in the prodigal son's longing for home). I appreciate that `longing' or `yearning' can be used in a way that doesn't look to a specific outcome (``I long for my lost youth''). But if you use the phrase ``look at a woman with longing'', that suggests more to me than mere sexual arousal.

I'm not for a moment suggesting that Jesus would have approved of pornography, had he been asked. My point is simply that the Gospel writers don't seem, on the whole, to have been particularly squeemish about the words they used, and Greek has a perfectly sufficient vocabulary to express the injuction ``Do not look at a woman in such a way that it gives you a woody''.

quote:
Lustfully vs lustfull intent does strike me as splitting sub-hairs.

Maybe; but I don't think the difference between `lustfully' and `longingly' is hair-splitting. I had lustful thoughts about the woman who just walked past my window, but I don't long for her.

But I agree with you in a sense -- picking apart the fine shades of meaning in individual scriptural sentences is not an activity which I think gets us very far.


quote:
But I don't think Jesus intended those words to consider specific instances and their different cultural settings... I think the point was that crimes of thought are crimes of thought - be that hate and murder, or lust and adultery....

I agree entirely; but I believe the `thought' at issue here is the thought of adultery -- that is, giving serious consideration to taking part in an adulterous act.
 
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by CrookedCucumber:
But if you use the phrase ``look at a woman with longing'', that suggests more to me than mere sexual arousal.

If I read this phrase in a novel or essay, the context would tell me whether lust or love or something else -- one could look at a woman with longing because she seems to represent something one wants. Without any context, I would assume it referred to erotic love.
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
I'd have thought that the intent - or ability to get - wasn't an important issue.

When hatred is linked to murder, it's not necessary that the hate involve a serious intent to murder - at least that's not how I read the Sermon on the Mount.

Similarly, with adultuery it seems unnecessary that the thoughts associated with lust/longing/yearning whatever it is are associated with a serious intent or possibility.

So that's how I come to apply the sermon to pornography.
 
Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :
 
Except that for me, subjectively, Asia Carrera is as fictional as Lady Chatterly (or Elizabeth Bennet, who I'd be much more inclined to long for). It's very different from looking with lustful longing on my next-door neighbor, with whom I might actually contemplate consummating adultery.

I can't see that passage as a prohibition on fantasy as such.
 
Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :
 
"With the intent to masturbate" certainly seems like it falls under the "with lustful intent" rubric from my POV.

(pelling)

[ 24. February 2006, 14:42: Message edited by: Mousethief ]
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
I agree, MT.

I doubt that attainability is the issue.

Were one to gaze lustfully at a woman who one could never contemplate speaking to because of societal boundries, would the verse not be relevant? Or to harbour hatred against a brother much stronger than oneself?

In Jesus' day, the Law said that what you did was what mattered. Jesus challenged them that what they thought might also be a problem.

To say that what you think is only a problem if it might translate into what you do, but not if it couldn't, seems to miss the point.
 
Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :
 
With you 100% mdijon.
 
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
To say that what you think is only a problem if it might translate into what you do, but not if it couldn't, seems to miss the point.

Especially when you consider how this works with other things. If I harbor anger, cherish it, consciously stoke it, even if I never act on it, even if I somehow manage to keep it from affecting how I treat someone, it has a terrible effect on me.

But I have a problem with promulgating a rule that says "no porn for Christians" for the same reasons that I have a problem with other rules that focus on the thing or the behavior -- alcohol, drugs, sex before marriage, etc. -- instead of the principle at stake.
 
Posted by Jerry Boam (# 4551) on :
 
And what is the principle, here?
 
Posted by RooK (# 1852) on :
 
Perhaps one of the principles at play here is the idea that people are complex and mysterious beings who are more than merely the sum of their urges.

Our intellectual selves merely surf on the waves of physical and emotional selves, and that to assert control can only realistically be done as an end filter - you can intellectual control your deeds, but there is no reliable means to intellectually determine your primitive drives. Denying our physical or emotional selves may serve some intellectual purpose, but it does so at some risk of poisoning mechanisms unfathomed by our intellects. So many learn coping techniques - venting some urges and drives in a minimally unacceptable manner, or sublimating them into something more acceptable.

But you should ask yourself, what really is the harm of letting your physical or emotional self have free reign on occasion? If you know that you risk an addictive reaction that will erode you, then restraint is in order. If you will hurt no one and nothing, except perhaps your foolish pride, then I for one suggest being the animal you are sometimes instead of always just the socially-acceptable intellectual construct.

Clearly, this isn't what RuthW meant, but I liked the segue.
 
Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :
 
Is there a difference between me inventing a wholly imaginary woman to fantasize about and becoming aroused thinking of her; plagiarizing someone else's fantasy by looking at, say, a Japanese erotic painting; looking at a photograph of a woman I have never met and never will; and becoming aroused at the thought of getting off with someone I am actually acquainted with?

It seems to me there is a clear distinction between fantasy that is acknowledged as such and the cultivation of the will to act in unloving ways. Sane people know the difference.
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
It might be worth asking in some cases qwhether porn becomes a way of escaping from having to cope with a real person. Imaginary lovers, and all that.
 
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jerry Boam:
And what is the principle, here?

What RooK said.

OK, not really. [Big Grin]

IMO, the principle here is "love your neighbor as yourself."
 
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
Perhaps one of the principles at play here is the idea that people are complex and mysterious beings who are more than merely the sum of their urges.

I'm not sure that this is a principle so much as an accessment of a condition.
quote:
Our intellectual selves merely surf on the waves of physical and emotional selves, and that to assert control can only realistically be done as an end filter - you can intellectual control your deeds, but there is no reliable means to intellectually determine your primitive drives.
I disagree. The intellect is [or should be] the master of all it surveys. The intellect knows what base physical drives are about. We know what initiates hunger on all its levels of expression [survival and reproduction] and knowing that implies control of the expression. It's not about an "end filter" but about recognizing who initiates expression of basic desires.
quote:
Denying our physical or emotional selves may serve some intellectual purpose, but it does so at some risk of poisoning mechanisms unfathomed by our intellects. So many learn coping techniques - venting some urges and drives in a minimally unacceptable manner, or sublimating them into something more acceptable.
I submit that it's not necessary to deny our physical and emotional selves to control them and [for me at least] there is no unfathomed mechanism to be poisoned. Our emotional force is a potent requirement for acting upon any intellectual construct we wish to bring to fruition. If one wishes to discharge their emotional energy into a lifeless image of something real they are simply wasting their effort. There is nothing to be poisoned [or denied] by directing the process of creative acts
quote:
But you should ask yourself, what really is the harm of letting your physical or emotional self have free reign on occasion? If you know that you risk an addictive reaction that will erode you, then restraint is in order. If you will hurt no one and nothing, except perhaps your foolish pride, then I for one suggest being the animal you are sometimes instead of always just the socially-acceptable intellectual construct.
My intellectual construct has yet to be recognized as socially acceptable but that is at the bottom of my list of concerns and since I haven't an addictive personality [I chose my poisons] I really have nothing to lose by giving my animal nature free reign short of wasted energy and time. There's nothing wrong with getting down and dirty so long as it's a clear decision you're making with eyes wide open.
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
It might be worth asking in some cases whether porn becomes a way of escaping from having to cope with a real person. Imaginary lovers, and all that.

Absolutely can. It can be an escape from coping with any of the things addicts use their addictive substance of choice to escape from - frustration, anger - even joy.
 
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
Perhaps one of the principles at play here is the idea that people are complex and mysterious beings who are more than merely the sum of their urges.
[...]
Denying our physical or emotional selves may serve some intellectual purpose, but it does so at some risk of poisoning mechanisms unfathomed by our intellects. So many learn coping techniques - venting some urges and drives in a minimally unacceptable manner, or sublimating them into something more acceptable.
[...]
If you will hurt no one and nothing, except perhaps your foolish pride, then I for one suggest being the animal you are sometimes instead of always just the socially-acceptable intellectual construct.

I'm not at all sure that porn qualifies as a expression of our animal drives. Porn is a absolute commercial and social construct, one that pushes sexual expression into a narrowly defined series of supremely formulaic and predictable moves. That formula is certainly socially constructed, and may in its turn construct our perception of our own sexuality. There is no room in it for the complex and mysterious nature of our own selves, never mind the compounded complexities that come from interacting with another person who isn't paid to dance to our tune.

IMO. I really need to find something to do on Saturdays.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gort:
The intellect knows what base physical drives are about. We know what initiates hunger on all its levels of expression [survival and reproduction] and knowing that implies control of the expression.

I disagree. I believe we know at least part of the physical mechanisms which are some of what those hungers/desires are made of, but that is not the same thing as those desires being wholly physical and/or survival/reproduction-driven with no other things (on physical or non-physical levels) initiating them.

David
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
Coming rather late to this thread (there has to be a better way of saying that...)

Prison is a place which has disturbed my thinking on this. When I first started visiting, I was surprised that all the walls of every cell weren't plastered with pinups. In fact, there is the complete range from nil via straightforward photos of fully dressed women and catalogue underwear photos to hard porn - often conveniently placed over the wash basin or toilet.

I think for a lot of these guys there might be some idea of reminding themselves they are heterosexual (or simply sexual beings) in an environment where the fear of enforced homosexual acts is real. I've wondered from time to time whether such behaviour isn't less harmful than some of the other ways they might deal with sexual deprivation.
 
Posted by Janine (# 3337) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
... I have a problem with promulgating a rule that says "no porn for Christians" for the same reasons that I have a problem with other rules that focus on the thing or the behavior -- alcohol, drugs, sex before marriage, etc. -- instead of the principle at stake.

You reminded me here of Josh McDowell's 'Precept, Principle, Person' idea, which he touches upon in this article.

Like, to lie is not bad because Mommy or the Church say so -- just because of the precept, "Don't lie" --

And not even simply/only because that which is false is not true, as a principle --

But because of the person -- the Person -- from whom we draw all such concepts --

So to lie is bad because in God there is nothing false, and a lie is a tainted less-than-Light thing.

So -- just about any aspect you want to single out from commercial porn, the making of it, the use of it --

Is not necessarily wrong because Polite Society says so, at the "precept" level --

And not simply or only wrong because of various wrong things that might happen and do happen in connection with porn, at the "principle" level --

But the wrong aspects of porn get that way because they have no part, no place, in the Perfect Light or Perfect Love or Perfect Good than is God the Person.

Geesh, I think I strained a brain cell trying to be coherent. I hope that was understandable.
 
Posted by Wannabe Heretic (# 11037) on :
 
Hi

I agree with what's been said about porn not being in principle any worse than another exploitative job - that is, although in practice it often is exploitative, it is not inherently so, and some people doubtless enjoy it. I wonder whether the prevalent attitudes towards it actually make it worse? Is the feeling that sex is 'different' - more private, or more shameful - something natural, or is it actually that we make people feel they ought to be ashamed about it? On a slight tangent, I read an interview once with a man who had had sex with an adult when he was a child. He said he 'now realised he had been abused' and felt bad about it, although at the time this didn't occur to him. I worry that people are told by others that they ought to feel exploited - and thus humiliated.
 
Posted by nicolemrw (# 28) on :
 
Another thought.

Particularly now with the advent of the internet, there is plenty of amature porn, of all types, written, photographic, drawn, and filmed, floating around, produced by people who are not in any way making money off it. Where does that fit in?
 
Posted by Janine (# 3337) on :
 
I'm not thinking "profit" turns a process evil...
 
Posted by Joyfulsoul (# 4652) on :
 
Janine, I really liked what you re: principles and Light.
 
Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Joyfulsoul:
Janine, I really liked what you re: principles and Light.

As did I.
 
Posted by Janine (# 3337) on :
 
Hah... I have the explanation of it down... let's see me get on better with the practice of living past precepts and principles, right there at the feet of the Person...

I have to admit I'm ** not interested in the fruitless exercise of pegging down a line in the sand and saying "That's it, anything beyond that is Purely Evil, Rotten Porn, Exploitative Of All Who Made, Sold, Bought Or Viewed It!"

I mean, doesn't it ultimately come down to personal comfort level, as one stews in the juices of one's culture and times, when decisions are made about what to ban?

I'm much more interested in getting past the use & abuse of erotic materials and wondering about what drives us off cliffs in that realm of our lives. What it is in us, and what we can do to make sure our appetites are fed and drives channeled.

One way to deal with all that is to squelch the drives. Shove "self" under. Another is to try to dig up the reason, the goal, the thing we're really striving for when we use porn or eat that second pound of chocolates or submit to yet another abusive episode with battering spouse.

There are other ways I'm sure. Like to have a subscription to Hustler and Playboy and National Geographic. [Razz]

.
.
.
.

** (unless I get to set the standard...)

[ 26. February 2006, 02:15: Message edited by: Janine ]
 
Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Janine:
I'm much more interested in getting past the use & abuse of erotic materials and wondering about what drives us off cliffs in that realm of our lives.

Hormones?
 
Posted by nicolemrw (# 28) on :
 
quote:
the thing we're really striving for when we use porn or eat that second pound of chocolates or submit to yet another abusive episode with battering spouse.

I'm interested in why you equate the "use" of porn with overeating or allowing oneself to be battered.

I could possibly see equating the "abuse" of porn with overeating, but surely the occasional enjoyment of a dirty picture or story is no different than, say, an occasional chocolate bar.
 
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 
And while there are levels of chocolate use that are okay and levels that aren't, and while there may be levels of porn use that are okay and others that aren't (one of the debatable points on this thread), there aren't levels of spousal abuse that are okay. One extra piece of See's chocolate every now and then: okay. A "dirty" picture or story on occasion: maybe okay. Just one good right hook to the jaw: not okay.
 
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Janine:
I'm much more interested in getting past the use & abuse of erotic materials and wondering about what drives us off cliffs in that realm of our lives.

Hormones?
The interaction between hormones and brains puzzles me. At one level, the use of erotic material - particularly addictively - can be understood in terms of dopamine, reward, escape - all the usual addict themes. Just like alcoholism, gambling etc., which don't need hormones.

On the other hand, we know that testosterone is required to have a sex drive. Certainly in men, probably in women.

I find it depressing that such detailed cognitive processes with local synapses and adaptive logic circuits are at the mercy of some tiny steroid molecule that floats around systemically at a given concentration.

Maybe RooK was right.
 
Posted by blackbeard (# 10848) on :
 
Blackbeard has found this thread to be of absorbing interest and thanks everyone who has contributed ... however he can't refrain from one observation which he hopes isn't too much off topic.
Switch on the telly to any channel and watch it for an hour or two (not that I would but hey ...) or go to the local cinema ... chances are quite high that you will see a depiction of violence, ending in serious injury or death, and depicted in loving detail, every aspect fully savoured.
Now it seems to me that every objection which can be raised against pornography can also be raised against depictions of violence, and in my view apply more strongly. But most of the population appears to be hooked.
Are we straining out gnats and swallowing camels?
If depictions of violence are OK, why is pornography not (if indeed it isn't)?
 
Posted by CrookedCucumber (# 10792) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by blackbeard:
Now it seems to me that every objection which can be raised against pornography can also be raised against depictions of violence, and in my view apply more strongly. But most of the population appears to be hooked.
Are we straining out gnats and swallowing camels?
If depictions of violence are OK, why is pornography not (if indeed it isn't)?

I'm not hooked. I find depictions of violence hugely more troubling than depictions of sexuality.
 
Posted by Janine (# 3337) on :
 
If depictions of violence are more troubling than depictions of sexuality --

How about depictions of violently-enacted-sexuality? Or some sort of sexuality expressed through the use of violence?

Like, porn may be OK on someone's list -- it may be argued that an image or a film that crosses into porn territory for some won't for others, even if all concerned agree that some things somewhere are porn and Not Good --

But you take the same image and flavor it with violence and it crosses over to the unacceptable side much sooner and for many more observers, don't you think?

Even if every shot is still all acting and posing, not real at all, just as it was before the violent elements were worked in.
 
Posted by ReginaShoe (# 4076) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by blackbeard:

Now it seems to me that every objection which can be raised against pornography can also be raised against depictions of violence, and in my view apply more strongly. But most of the population appears to be hooked.
Are we straining out gnats and swallowing camels?
If depictions of violence are OK, why is pornography not (if indeed it isn't)?

I certainly don't believe that depictions of violence are all OK (particularly for children). When it comes to what my own children see, I would be much more disturbed by them seeing something at a PG-13 level of violence than, say, a topless woman or a very passionate kiss. (They are still pretty small at the moment, FYI.) That thought has occurred to me on this thread, but I haven't mentioned it because it is a bit off-topic. Also, the last time on these boards I started on a treatise on the scientific evidence linking violent media with aggressive behavior, it killed the thread [Frown]

Part of the issue in comparing them is the question of degree. I would see pornography as a far extreme of a continuum of portrayals of sexual behavior in the media, hence the difficulty in pinpointing exactly where the line between pornography and non-pornography is. So I would think that an analogous level of violence would be at the extreme end of that continuum as well, but we don't have a special name for that.

Also, at least with children and teens, the data I've seen indicate that with media violence quantity matters as well as degree, and that may not be the case for mildly sexually themed material. In other words, a kid who watches five hours of mildly violent TV every day is likely to be more aggressive than a kid in a TV-free household, whereas I've never heard any reports of negative effects of watching lots of smooches and flirting. (Other than boredom, anyway.) But then, this is not an area of expertise for me, so there may be some information there I've totally missed.

All that to say - yeah, we're happy to strain at the camel too, but perhaps in another thread.
 
Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ReginaShoe:
<snip> When it comes to what my own children see, I would be much more disturbed by them seeing something at a PG-13 level of violence than, say, a topless woman or a very passionate kiss.

As a wee tangent, why do passionate kissses on celluloid/digital whatever it is these days have to sound like a couple of randy eels bonking an icecream in a vacuum cleaner tube?

I have kissed once or twice in my life and it sure couldn't be heard like that.

Slurp suck slither blearrgh [Projectile]

[ 27. February 2006, 03:47: Message edited by: Zappa ]
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
[Killing me] [Killing me] [Killing me]
 
Posted by Duudical (# 11096) on :
 
I believe that God created us to be sexual beings. That even that need for intimacy was a part of His image that He breathed into man and woman. And like so much of who we are it was meant to reflect God. God isn't a prude. He calls sex a good thing, and even encourages us to go for it in places like 1 Cor. 7. Adam and Eve were "naked and unashamed" and it wasn't because they innocently didn't think about each other in that way if you know what I mean. I think it was because their expression of sex was a reflection of God's spiritual intimacy with them. When I think of porn, it doesn't reflect God's nature to me. It is the equivalent of me sleeping around with tons of gods - stuff that He clearly wasn't down with if you read Isaiah and Ezekiel and Jeremiah and Hosea and such...Porn certainly can damage people and relationships - but those are choices and consequences that God allows us to make and we have to deal wiht. I think the worse offense is that it inaccurately portrays God as someone who isn't devoted and committed and intimate with you in a very real way.
 
Posted by universalist (# 10318) on :
 
The first time i viewed porn was one day when i observed my handsome, athletic body in our bedroom full-length mirror. I was immediately aroused, then felt guilty and shamed as harsh, accusing, parental images from the official church began to flood my mind...

In recent years, though, I've learned about what St. Paul meant when he spoke of the dangers of Christians being "under the law". When we are under the law, this incites sin within us and we end up unable to obey (keep the law).

The church, beginning in about the 5th century began to formulate doctrines that made sex "bad" except only for pro-creation. Women began to be discounted, celibacy and the un-married life became the ideal. Meanwhile, the Irish church would have none of it, as Irish monks and nuns lived together and copulated like rabbits. Women were equals, were priests and bishops, and so on.

In the end, the greater church won out, Ireland conformed, and today we have shame tainting sex unconsciously in our minds. Maybe it's a matter of "balance" (an attribute of God). Sex used in moderation is probably the ideal, along with the use of any kind of erotica...
 
Posted by Jerry Boam (# 4551) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Duudical:
It is the equivalent of me sleeping around with tons of gods.

How so?

quote:
Originally posted by Duudical:
I think the worse offense is that it inaccurately portrays God as someone who isn't devoted and committed and intimate with you in a very real way.

I don't follow this at all!

While I'm sure I wouldn't qualify as an expert on Porn, I thought I had seen enough to have a fair idea of what it was about... Portrayal of God had was not a feature of the Porn I knew... Can you explain this a bit?
 
Posted by Duudical (# 11096) on :
 
When Paul discusses in Ephesians 5:22-33 he speaks of marriage - a committed monogamous relationship - as a symbol of Christ and His Church. Intimacy in the physical sense is included in the picture. Somehow sex became some kind of dirty act for the Church, which clearly isn't taught in the Bible. But going the to the other extreme as Porn does - equally ruins the picture in my mind.

I'm not saying Porn portrays God...I am saying it portrays sex, which I believe to be a physical representation of part of God's character. The way that Christ wants to know those that follow Him. Even that word know (the Greek word ginosko) is the same word used by the Jews for sex - "know in the Biblical sense" we would say. On a spiritual level God wants to know us completely. That is why marriage is the relationship set aside. Not because of any rule or law...but because any other envirionment blows God's picture to pieces and it no longer works.

As porn portrays sex with anyone and everyone in any relationship...sex ceases to be an accurate depiction of God's for us to know Him completely.

I probably still suck at voicing this so sorry if it makes no sense.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Duudical:
As porn portrays sex with anyone and everyone in any relationship...sex ceases to be an accurate depiction of God's for us to know Him completely.

... actually while I agree about sex having a lot of mystical symbolism, one could argue that since God loves us all and wants all of us to know Him... [Biased]

Not that I am arguing that, mind you, but one could make that counter-argument in this specific case.

I will stop before I get really silly. [Smile]

David
 


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